How we finish oak
No shortcuts, no lacquer
Most factory furniture is sprayed with lacquer: a plastic skin that looks perfect on day one and chips by year three. Once it chips, it cannot be repaired — only replaced. We finish every oak surface the slower way.
Eight thin coats of hard-wax oil, each hand-rubbed and left to cure. Oil does not sit on the wood; it becomes part of it. The surface stays matte, warm to the touch, and — crucially — repairable.
The process, honestly
Day one is sanding: 120, then 180, then 240 grit, always with the grain. Day two is the first coat, flooded on and wiped back after twenty minutes. Days three to six are coats two through five, each rubbed with a white pad. Days seven and eight are the final coats and the first polish.
It takes over a week per tabletop, most of it waiting. That waiting is the finish — oil needs time to cross-link inside the fibres, and no oven or accelerator does it as well as patience.
A finish should be felt, not seen. If you notice the coating before the wood, we have failed.
Living with oiled oak
Water rings wipe away. Scratches take a drop of the oil we include with every piece, rubbed in with a cloth. Once a year, an hour with oil and a pad renews the whole surface.
In other words: the table you buy at thirty is the table you re-oil at forty, and the table your children argue over at sixty. That is the entire idea.
Like how we think? You will like how we build.
Browse the pieces from our workshop — every one guaranteed for ten years.
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