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Whether your kitchen has been newly remodeled or you want to replace worn out kitchen chairs, the addition of a wooden kitchen bar stool will transform your boring kitchen into a pleasing room with elegant seating crafted from rich, natural wood. Many of these designs are a combination of highly polished wood and fabric or leather upholstery. Ranging in styles from traditional to contemporary, wooden stools for the kitchen are available in swivel or non-swivel styles, and high back or backless models. Wood stools can also be purchased in stylish designs with or without arms.

Often called a breakfast bar stool, they are usually found in classic brown or basic black. To complement different decors and personal tastes, wooden kitchen stools are manufactured in soft pastel colors, as well as colors that are bold and bright. Kitchen stools are made from a variety of popular woods including Oak, Mahogany, Ash, and Cherry. Another widely used wood for making stools is Pine. Soft and easy to carve, Pine is economical and readily available. Many premium quality wooden stools feature hand carved designs, self-returning swivels connected to strong frames, and a comfortable metal encased foot rail.

Wooden stools for the kitchen are ideal to use in corner nooks, under a kitchen window sill, or to add an overall look of distinctive elegance and style. The price for a wooden kitchen stool will range from moderate to expensive. Factory made kitchen stools are the most practical, but many times customers will prefer to have them customized to match specific colors or intricate patterns that highlight the kitchen. When you are ready to compare different designs and models, you should look for kitchen bar stools that are built with quality construction from sturdy and durable wood. If they are combined with upholstery, check for any loose or hanging threads, and material that may be cracked, bulged, or torn. All hardware should be securely attached, and the stool should have an adequate seating pad. Bar stools with high backs need sufficient padding along with good back support, and they should stand level on all sides.

When you batten down the hatches, turn up the heat and bundle up to keep out of the cold winter weather, do you ever consider what is happening to your patio furniture that is being left outside? While you may think those pieces are just inanimate objects, the truth is that your wood furniture is going to have to deal with some rough consequences of that weather change.

Here is a look at a few of the threats to your wood patio furniture:

Dryness – Often winter weather is very dry weather. You know how your lips and skin get dry and crack? Well the same thing can happen to wood furniture. In this case the drying and cracking can not only make the furniture less attractive, but also less sturdy.

Water Damage – Another threat is from that winter precipitation that is going to impact your furniture pieces. Once there is any cracking or splitting in the wood of the furniture, it becomes susceptible to water damage. What will happen is that rain or snow will fall on the furniture. Once it’s water, it will seep into the cracks of the wood and sit and wait. When the temperature dips overnight, it will freeze again. When water freezes it expands. In the case of your furniture this means it will make those cracks and splits bigger and damage your wood.

Warping – The constant changing in heat and cooling of your wood can also lead the wood itself to start to change shape. What you thought was a flat surface when you were last using it can suddenly be a warped piece of furniture.

Hardware – The changes in temperature during the winter can also start to cause problems with the hardware on your furniture. Often times pieces of hardware will work themselves loose with the constant constriction and release of the wood reacting to the weather. If these are not checked before you try to use the furniture it may fail or become damaged.

Prevention

So what can you do to stop from having all of these problems with your patio furniture? Prevent the problems in the first place. There are a couple of levels of prevention you can choose from.

The first level of prevention is to keep the precipitation that can cause damage out of the wood. This can be done by investing in outdoor furniture covers. These are meant to help protect your furniture pieces from the weather.

The next method is stopping your furniture from having to be out in the cold. When the winter weather moves in and you know you will not be outside as much anymore, why not bring your furniture in as well. Whether you bring the pieces into the garage or have a storage area where you can put them, bringing them inside for the winter can help them avoid all the problems with the cold weather. This can also help your wood furniture last much longer than it would out in the elements.

Furnish your home with rustic log furniture for years of family friendly use!

Log furniture is becoming more and more popular, not just in cabins , rustic lodges and resorts but in homes and apartments as well. The natural rustic look is very popular from coast to coast. The natural look is soft and relaxing and brings a warm and soothing atmosphere into any room or home.

If you have a home that features large logs, spacious ceilings or you have a fireplace made from monster rocks from Montana, you’ll need a massive log look for your furniture as well. Otherwise, your furniture will seem dwarfed and insignificant.

Even if the home for your log furniture is a cabin with 8-inch logs, a few large pieces of furniture will look better than many small ones. Larger furniture makes a room feel full without being cluttered.

What is ‘Checking’?

“Checking” is a natural process that occurs in all pine logs as they dry. As the wood releases moisture, small surface cracks can result. This “checking” in no way affects the integrity or durability of the wood, and only serves to add a unique quality to each piece of rustic pine furniture. It also serves to preserve the wood longer, as moisture retention promotes rotting and decay (a common characteristic of pine). Although most call this process “checking”, I call it “character”.

Mortise and Tenon

Most rustic log furniture is made using mortise and tenon construction, which simply means that all of the joints are attached by inserting a 2″ – 3″ tenon into the upright. This is a very trusted and traditional method that has been utilized across the world for centuries. In addition, top-of-the-line sliders are used in all of their drawer assemblies. Consequently, the drawers have a 75 pound test capacity and the result is an extremely smooth drawer pull.

Hand-Peeled or Skip-Peeled Log Furniture

Draw knives are used to hand peel the bark from the logs. The ‘skip-peel’ procedure leaves just enough color from the inner bark to give the appearance of natural texture and color contrast. A beautiful piece of art!

In most cases hand peeled log furniture may not be quite as smooth as the factory peeled pieces but the character and beauty is outstanding on these pieces. In some cases all the bark gets peeled off or clean peeled as some craftsmen call it leaving a smooth even color.

Should I Finish my Rustic Log Pine Furniture?

The lodgepole pine is a soft porous wood, easily absorbing the oil and dirt from our hands, leaving stains on your furniture…The oils in our hands are easily absorbed by unfinished wood. Of course our hands are never perfectly clean and the dirt is also absorbed right into the wood with the oil leaving soiled areas where your hands frequently touch the furniture. On a bed this is usually either the headboard or the footboard. One will reach out and grasp the bed to steady themselves while taking off shoes or socks. Right there on that post will be a big dark stain. The headboard sure makes a good handle for getting out of bed in the morning too! Another stain.

On dressers, of course the drawer pulls and the edge around the top gets the most handling. If an item is finished, washing is easy. It’s another story on bare wood. Finished log furniture will pass the test of time in keeping your furniture looking good for many years.

Finishing rustic log tables or dressers with a clear lacquer finish will give it a smooth clear surface that is very easy to keep clean.

You want your rustic log furniture to look as rustic and natural as possible. although it is okay to leave indoor log furniture unfinished, we recommend finishing your furniture with a clear finish to keep the natural look but if you want to have a deeper, older looking tone, you may want to put a light honey finish on it or like a linseed oil. Finishing it will change the look slightly but you will still have the same beautiful rustic look and it will benefit you in the long run.

If you happen to have unfinished furniture that is stained, especially around door handles, footboards, etc. The stains can be sanded out and your furniture restained or varnished.

If you do decide to leave it unfinished, clean your furniture often with a mild wood soap, like Murphy’s oil soap.

On your outdoor rustic log patio furniture or lawn furniture it will weather rather quickly so if you want to keep the fresh pine look, you may want to put a clear lacquer finish on it. The lacquer is a harder finish and will also help keep the pieces from becoming scarred or chipped.