Your Table Will Thank You: 5 Ways to Care For a Wooden Dining Table

While we're getting back to basics this month here at The Kitchn, we wanted to take a look at maintaining wood dining tables. It's probably the most common material amongst dining tables, and it can take a hefty chunk of change to buy a nice wooden table. So it goes without saying that we'd all like our tables to look good and serve their functions for a long time to come. Let's take a look at the basics:

• 1. Dust often. Small particles of dust may seem harmless, but enough buildup can scratch the wood's finish. Dust at least weekly with a soft, lint-free cloth (cheesecloth, a cotton diaper, or a cut-up old t-shirt all work wonderfully). Stay away from Pledge and other dust polish, as they contain silicones that can soak into the grain of the wood and damage it for good. Instead, lightly dampen a cloth with water or use a microfiber cloth that will cling to dust particles on its own.

• 2. Open the mayonnaise. If you have watermark rings in your tabletop from wet glasses, chances are it's in the wax, not the wood. Rubbing with mayonnaise should get the marks right out.

• 3. Placement matters. Don't place a wood dining table over a radiator or right next to a heat register. The temperature swings could damage the wood with warping or splitting. Also, store any extra leaves near the table itself (our table has a nifty place to store the extra leaf under the tabletop). This ensures that the leaf will not warp or swell/contract differently from the table. If you store the leaf in a basement or attic, the moisture and temperature differential could take its toll.

• 4. Watch humidity levels. As with all woodwork, from flooring to trim, from dining tables to other furnishings, try to keep humidity levels in your home between 40 and 45%. Any lower could crack the wood and any higher could cause swelling. For most of us, this means running a humidifier in the winter and an a/c or de-humidifier in the summer.

• 5. Make it shine. Like we pointed out above, not with a silicone product. Rather, polish with a hard, carnauba wax. Use two of those soft, lint-free cloths again: one to apply the wax and another to polish. It will take some real elbow grease, but thankfully this task only needs to be done about twice a year.

(Image: Sarah)

Comments (10)

And... having a few attractive tablecloths on hand doesn't hurt!

I second the tablecloths, no way my table could stand the beating of daily life without them.

i ruined the finish on (what i thought was) my indestructible wooden table. on my wormwood table i laid out a towel with some slightly damp clothes soaking in oxygen cleaner to dry overnight. the cleaner ate thru the finish on my table and left a strange brown stain. :( be careful!

On our last table, my husband removed the wax and replaced it with Tung Oil. It was time consuming and tedious, but it was BEAUTIFUL, non-toxic and made the table much easier to care for!

Argh. I wish I'd had this advice earlier. We LOVE our dining room table, and the two leaves that let us entertain for 10, but due to lack of space in our house, we stored the leaves in the garage for a year, and just recently noticed that they've warped slightly. Totally still usable, but disappointing. We promptly moved them inside (still haven't found a permanent place for them) and hopefully the damage won't get worse.

I will have to try the mayo trick. However, the best thing I could do is to strip, sand and refinish my 32 year old table.

Thank you for posting this - I wasn't expecting it to be (this is the internet, after all), but this is good, responsible advice that many people can use.

Take care of your wooden furniture! It's #1 enemy is you - no, really. Light, heat, cold, moisture/humidity, insects and mostly people. General rule of thumb is that if you are comfortable in your space, your things should be as well. Paste wax good. No Pledge, ever ever. Ever. I dunno about the mayo.

/conservator's kid.

Also, I like those blue and gold teacups and saucers.

What about advice for those of us who have beautiful wood tables that have been left unfinished (Pacifica from C&B over here).

Besides rthe obvious and regular sanding with 0000 steel wool, placemants, coaster, what else is there?

Beautifully set table. Can someone identify the napkins for me?

One thing I’ve learned from working in a fine furniture store, most people do not know how to properly care for their furniture, or what to look for. If anybody ever has any questions we always try to inform them of what needs to be done to maintain and care for our furniture; but it gets annoying have to explain often that it’s not “our” tables that require extra effort, it’s the material regardless of where it’s purchased.

@ANITA83, the chances are very good your table has been waxed. Wax is used to keep the wood moisturized; it provides [bare] minimal protection and doesn’t alter the look of the table. It does need to be reapplied every few months as it wears off, and you will still need to follow all the basic prevention. If you want something with less maintenance, you should look into sealing it. It somewhat defeats the point of buying a natural wood table, but sometimes it’s a compromise between what you want and what fits into your lifestyle. Something we recommend to people with small children who insist they don’t want to go the route of sealing, have a piece of glass or acrylic cut to size. Again, somewhat defeats the point of buying a wood table, but it will be something that saves them a boatload of trouble when their kids are older.