Naked wood? yes, your wood can be naked.
When selecting wood patio furniture, the customer will usually have the choice to get the items without any finish, lightly oil, stained or painted. This depends entirely on the customer as to how they want the piece to look. Here are a few guidelines to follow.
Do you want the furniture painted - If you want to paint the furniture, stay with poplar, ash or treated pine. I recommend poplar but the others will work well. Stay away from un-treated pine in that it won't last for long. The treated pine material will last many years and usually will last as long as cedar or redwood. The treated pine is softer however.
Another option to painted is the use recycled plastic. These come in a pre-defined colors. I would not recommend painting over plastic as it will peel away in a matter of months.
Painted - if the patio furniture is painted, make sure the paint used is a high grade wood paint ( I like oil based ) that is meant for outdoor use. Some cheaper manufacturers will use cheaper paints that are not UV stabalized and will fade very fast. They cover well and look good in the showroom but will fade in a year or two. I recommend when looking at painted furniture, try to chip a small piece of paint off on the underside of the furniture or at least find a seem where the paint to wood can be seen. See if the paint peels off easily. A good paint should not peel off at all if it was applied to the piece well.
Oil - A light oil coating is the most common for of finish for wood. After all, the reason for selecting wood patio furniture is for the wood itself. There are many types of oil to apply.
Stain - Be very carefully when having a piece of furniture stained. It is common to have a stain applied only to find out that the stain did not quite look the same as it did on the sample. There is no way to remove the stain once it is applied. I always discouraged customers from staining the patio furniture
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