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

Hopefully, before you made the investment, you already had a clear idea what you wanted to do with the piece, but if not, then before you pick up the first tool and start to work, it's time to plan! A little investment in time now will save you a great number of headaches 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

All of these options demands a bit of work on your part to protect your investment and maximize the beauty and functionality of the piece.

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

If you choose to paint your bare wood furniture, you've quite many to think about, aside from color choosing. Sort of paint, for instance. If a piece is to be positioned in a bathroom, you'll possibly desire to gravitate toward a glossy paint, as these stand up well to the high moisture environment. For high traffic/heavily used pieces, semi-gloss paints offer a good balance of attractiveness and durability, and if the piece is planned for a lower traffic/lower intensity environment, then flat or satin finishes will serve you well.

Now's also the time to consider 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're numerous attractive stencils you can use, readily available at home stores (Lowe's, Home Depot), arts and craft shops (Michael's), and sometimes at chain retail outlets (Wal-Mart, Target), so you have got various options. Naturally, if you are artistically inclined or know someone who is, a hand painted border is a good method to really personalize the piece!

At last, you might choose to stain your new piece of furniture. This is my personal favorite technique of finishing pieces, although it takes the longest, and if this is the direction you intend to go, again, you have got various decisions to make, beginning with the type of stain you will use. Stains come in oil-based, water-based, or gel, and while my own preference runs to oil based, you will wish to experiment to find out which works best for you. Surely, you don't want to experiment directly on your new piece of furniture, so I recommend purchasing an unfinished wood shelf of the same form of wood from your local home shop and experiment on that. Once you make a firm selection, you can proceed with confidence and start working on your bare wood furniture direct.

Make a plan, have some fun, and enjoy your new piece of bare wood furniture, regardless of how you choose to finish it!