How to Care for Oiled Ash Furniture

An oil finish is not a worse version of lacquer. It is a different deal. Lacquer puts a plastic film between you and the wood, and when that film is damaged you are looking at the damage through it. Oil goes into the wood and cures there, so there is almost nothing on top to damage, and what does go wrong can be fixed in an afternoon by somebody with no training.

What is actually on the surface

Very little. Penetrating oils soak into the open structure of the timber and harden inside the fibres. Hard wax oils do the same and leave a thin wax layer on top as well. Either way, when you run a hand over an oiled ash shelf you are touching wood, not a coating. That is why it feels warm and slightly dry rather than slick.

Ash helps here. It is ring porous, which means it has visible open grain running through it, and oil keys into that structure well. It is also pale, so it shows what it has been through, which some people want and some people should think about before buying.

The routine

• Dust with a dry cloth, along the grain.
• Marks come off with a barely damp cloth and a drop of washing-up liquid, then dry immediately.
• Never leave water standing. Not on a coaster ring, not around a plant pot, not under a wet glass.
• Wipe spills from anything coloured straight away. Red wine and beetroot do not care that the wood is sealed.

The water test, and re-oiling

Forget calendars. Put a drop of water on a part of the piece that gets used, and one on a part that does not.

If the drop beads and the wood under it stays the same colour for a few minutes, the oil is doing its job. If the wood darkens quickly, that area has had the oil worn out of it and wants a coat.

Re-oiling is not a refinishing job. In short:

• Clean the surface and let it dry fully.
• If it is rough or marked, sand lightly along the grain with fine paper, then wipe the dust off.
• Apply a thin coat of a hard wax oil suitable for furniture with a lint-free cloth.
• Leave it the few minutes the maker tells you, then wipe off everything that has not soaked in. This step is the one people skip and it is the one that matters. Oil left sitting on the surface cures sticky.
• Leave it to cure before putting anything back on it. Overnight at the minimum.

One warning that is genuinely important: oily rags can heat up on their own as the oil cures. Spread them out flat to dry outside, or soak them in water before you bin them. Do not screw them into a ball and leave them in a bin bag.

Fixing marks

White water ring. Moisture caught in the top fibres. Sand lightly along the grain, re-oil, done.

Dark ring or black spot. Water has got further in and reacted with the tannins. This one needs more sanding and sometimes does not come out completely. It is the reason the first rule is about standing water.

Scratch. If you can feel it with a fingernail, sand the area along the grain, feather the edges out so there is no visible border, and re-oil. On an oiled surface a repair blends. On a lacquered one it leaves a patch.

Dent. Crushed fibres, not removed ones. A damp cloth and a warm iron held briefly over the spot will often raise the fibres back. Then sand and re-oil.

Heat, sun and the heating season

Wood moves with the moisture in the air, taking it up in a humid summer and giving it back in a dry heated flat in winter. It moves across the grain much more than along it. In practice that means small seasonal changes in width, slight gaps appearing and closing at joints, and occasionally a faint hairline check in a wide surface. That is timber behaving normally rather than a fault.

You can take the edge off it. Keep a piece away from a radiator and out of the direct path of a heat pump. If a room goes very dry in winter, anything that adds humidity helps the furniture as much as it helps you.

Sun is the other one. Direct sunlight on one half of a surface for a year gives you two different colours of ash and a visible line. Move things around occasionally, or accept the tan line as part of the record.