• Furniture Care
• Dining Furniture Care

Dining Furniture Care

Important Furniture Facts to Know About Your Dining Furniture Selection

Warranty and Manufacturing Defects

DOCK86 warranties all wood products for one full year from date of delivery.

Warrantable defects include:

• Finish peeling or lifting (not from abuse or improper care)
• Season cracks
• Table gap larger than a quarter
• Aprons preventing the table from closing

We will repair the following (not exchange)

• Glide malfunction
• Broken apron covers
• Wobbly chairs
• Minor defects in the finish or operation

The following is considered normal and is not warrantable:

• Small scratches in the finish... These will happen, regardless of the finish! This is considered normal wear and tear.
• Cloudy finish from using the wrong cleaner
• Wobbly chairs that the customer assembled
• Bad finish due to abuse such as putting a pizza box on a tabletop
• Sun fading or color change
• Gaps that a dime will fit in
• Wood grain variation
• Wood stain variation within reason
• Dents in Flooring

Caring for your dining selection from DOCK86

Easy Care Tips

A little bit of tender loving care will go a long way toward enhancing your enjoyment and protecting your furniture investment.

Humidity

Excessive or widely varying humidity levels in the home can negatively affect the structural integrity of the wood. Use a humidifier and/or air conditioner to maintain a relative humidity between 25 and 35 percent. Avoid placing solid wood furniture directly in front of oil radiators, heat runs, or wood-burning stoves. Do not store filler leaves in a damp basement.

Sunlight

For the sake of your furniture’s finish, avoid prolonged exposure to direct sunlight. Also, be aware that a darkening of solid cherry will occur in the first six to nine months in your home, due to direct and indirect lighting. We recommend rotating items placed on solid wood during this time to avoid uneven development of the wood’s natural patina. All wood will change color over time. When you add to your collection you will notice that the new item will not match perfectly. This is normal and over time the colors will change. Items left on the table top; like a centerpiece or a table runner will leave a darkened mark where the sun can affect it.

Protection

Always use coasters, trivets and pads to prevent damage from hot casseroles and wet glasses. Blot spills immediately, and be especially careful with solvents, perfume, alcohol, and nail polish. Do not put items on the wood’s surface that can scratch it. Use placemats and table runners as nearly all dinnerware will cause small surface scratches over time. Attach felt pads to all dining chairs and stools that sit on hard surface flooring. Replace felt pads annually or as needed. Attach pads directly to the existing felt or bottom of the chair/stool.

Cleaning

Use a clean, damp cloth and wipe down the table surface and the apron after each meal. Wipe with the grain and do not leave standing water on the tabletop! Wipe chairs down as necessary. For daily cleaning, there is no need to use any other cleaner than plain old water on a clean cloth.

Any reputable brand of furniture polish will help protect the surface of the wood from drying out, thus preventing surface checks, but notice the differences in polishes. Those that contain wax must be completely cleaned off before the next application to prevent build-up. Those with silicones will create a greater sheen than the original finish. We do not recommend spray on type furniture polishes and cleaners.

Wood Conditioning

Condition your dining set 4-6 times per year with a wood oil that is silicone free. This activity will help fill in surface scratches and will harden the table’s finish.

Table Gaps

Solid wood tables will have a gap where the two halves meet. It is normal. This is designed this way to allow for the natural expansion and contraction that comes with solid wood tables.

Moving

Avoid dragging furniture. Don’t pick up tables from the ends, instead, pick them and move them from the sides.

Loving

Treat your furniture well, enjoy your choice and your investment and it will reward you with years of service.

Characteristics of Wood & Wood Finishes

Pine

Distressing is a normal characteristic of pine, and is frequently infused as an enhanced stylistic feature. Pumice is a wax used on wood that leaves a white residue in cracks and indentations in wood. This is also

considered part of ”the look” and is associated with higher quality, as it suggests that the piece was hand-rubbed. (This process is reminiscent of old times, when furniture was hand-rubbed with bee’s wax.)

Lacquer

Pit marks, small surface scratches and blemishes are definite characteristics of the type of finish. Please use extreme caution when placing or moving objects on this type of surface. Use no abrasives when cleaning.

Whitewashed Wood

Blue bleed through (or darker pieces of wood) showing through the finish is a definite characteristic that these products have, and is not a defect. These characteristics might enhance as time wears on.

Cherry

Pit marks are a normal characteristic of cherry. These pit marks are actually little worm holes. These holes can be pin-dot in size, on an angle, or in the form of a line, as wood is cut in many directions and worms travel in many directions also. Color variations within a piece are quite normal, as each piece of wood will absorb a finish differently. As time wears on, cherry will change color and fade. Be sure not to leave objects on cherry pieces for a prolonged period of time (weeks or months at a time). Please rotate any items displayed on cherry to ensure the pieces age evenly.

Oak

The greatest beauty of oak is the wood grain. Wood grain will vary within a single length of board from similar grain to dramatically different grain. These grains can sometimes appear darker and denser than other grains. Color variations within a piece are quite normal and are not a defect, as each piece of wood will absorb a finish differently.

Other Important Information

Casegoods

All pieces with doors will need to be leveled periodically and usually whenever they are moved. You will know this when your doors no longer line up as closely as they originally did. This concern is corrected by slightly raising the foot of one or more sides of the case piece. Some pieces might have feet that raise or lower, called levelers. Others may require shimming a small piece of wood underneath the piece to assist in the leveling of the product to adjust the alignment of the doors.