Furniture Care

Finishes

All J&S products are hand-finished to our high standards of quality, and are made to last a lifetime. Care is taken by our team in each step of the building process. All our pieces are finished with a locally-made waterborne alkyd varnish with exceptionally low VOC release. Our finish is durable, abrasion resistant, water repellent, and relatively stain-proof against most foods and drinks such as tomato sauce, food oils, coffee, tea, wine, beer, etc. Should scratches or damage occur, it is easy to repair through a simple application of our finish. Do not expose our finish to any kinds of solvents like acetone, nail polish remover, lacquer thinner, or gum remover, etc.

All of our steel work is designed to build a patina over time through oxidization and slow exposure to atmospheric conditions. It is coated with a beeswax and mineral oil based furniture polish that requires periodic reapplication to build and maintain the protective coat that prevents uninhibited rusting.

Furniture Care and Feeding

Over the first few weeks and months please take extra care with your new piece of furniture while the finish continues to cure to full hardness and the wood adapts to your environment and climate. As will all furniture surfaces, we recommend using placemats, coasters, and trivets. Wood changes and moves with  sunlight exposure, temperature, and humidity as it formed from billions of organic cells that will continue to adapt and react to the conditions they are exposed to. Wood is hygroscopic and will try to keep the moisture within its cell walls at an equalibrium with the surrounding air. Wood shrinks as it loses moisture and swells as it gains moisture. The ideal humidity levels to maintain in the environment around solid wood furniture is 35%-55% relative air humidity. This keeps expansion and contraction to a minimum, can prevent cracks from forming, and aids in increasing the durability and longevity.  Everything we build is designed with durability and longevity in mind, however, any movement, checks, knots, warping, swelling, suface defects, stain differences, discoloration, pitch and gum pockets, and variations are inherent characteristics of solid wood furniture and cannot always be eliminated or prevented. We instead celebrate these characteristics, as they are unique identifiers to each piece.

For both the wood and steel components of our furniture, we recommend using Howard Feed-N-Wax wood polish and conditioner to keep the finishes conditioned and looking their best. Please contact us with any further care or maintenance questions specific to your furniture piece and we will be happy to assist you.