So you have taken the plunge and bought a piece of bare wood furniture. Congratulations! It is an excellent value for the money, and with proper care, can last for generations.

Hopefully, before you made the investment, you already had a clear idea what you desired to do with the piece, but if not, then before you grab the first tool and begin to work, it's time to plan! A little investment in time now will save you a great number of issues down the road.

Where bare wood furniture is concerned, you essentially have three choices for finishing the piece, and they are:

Leave the wood "naked"

Paint it

Stain it

Each of these options requires a bit of work on your part in order to protect your investment and increase the beauty and performance of the piece.

The easiest thing you can do is just "finish" your new piece of bare wood furniture is to let it stay in its natural state. If you choose this option, you'll probably wish to protect the wood by coating it in some kind of wood protecting oil (linseed oil is usually used on a wide variety of bare wood), but there are other products available as well. Always, always, always try out first by applying a small amount of the oil you chose to an unseen corner of the wood to ensure that it will not cause any discoloration or any other reaction in the wood. Once assured of this, you can safely apply your chosen protective oil to the whole piece.

If you decide to paint your bare wood furniture, you have quite a lot to think about, aside from color selection. Type of paint, for instance. If a piece is to be positioned in a bathroom, you will possibly desire to gravitate toward a glossy paint, as these stand up well to the high moist environment. For high traffic/heavily used pieces, semi-gloss paints offer a good balance of good looks and durability, and if the piece is planned for a lower traffic/lower intensity environment, then flat or satin finishes will help you fine.

Now's also the time to think about whether or not you will have any form of border or scrollwork on your bare wood furniture. If you are not particularly artistically inclined, there are a variety of attractive stencils you can use, readily available at home stores (Lowe's, Home Depot), arts and craft stores (Michael's), and often at chain retail outlets (Wal-Mart, Target), so you have got various options. Obviously, if you are artistically inclined or know someone who is, a hand painted border is a good approach to really personalize the piece!

At last, you might decide to stain your new piece of furniture. This is my own favorite method of finishing pieces, although it takes the longest, and if this is the direction you intend to go, again, you've got a variety of decisions to make, beginning with the type of stain you'll use. Stains come in oil-based, water-based, or gel, and while my personal preference runs to oil based, you'll wish to experiment to find out which works best for you. Certainly, you do not wish to experiment directly on your new piece of furniture, so I recommend buying an unfinished wood shelf of the same type of wood from your local home shop and experiment on that. Once you make a firm selection, you can proceed with confidence and begin working on your bare wood furniture direct.

Make a plan, have some fun, and enjoy your new piece of bare wood furniture, no matter how you choose to finish it!