The first thing you probably notice about a piece of wood furniture is the way the finish looks and how it feels to the touch. The look and feel of the finish generally plays a large part in how you perceive the quality and value of the furniture, as well it should.
When evaluating a finish, what should you look for to determine the quality of that finish? Two aspects you should look at closely include the clarity and feel of the finish. If you can see a beautiful wood grain pattern through the finish, then there is a lot of clarity. Higher quality products usually let the natural beauty of the wood grain show through. Lower end products tend to hide the wood grain to some degree. If you will reach out and touch the furniture, rubbing your hand across the surface, you can feel the differences. Usually, better furniture has a silky smooth feel; lower priced furniture is not as smooth.
Finish is All About Fashion
A fine furniture finish is designed to "enhance and protect the natural beauty of the wood." That's the description from one of our full-time professional finishing technicians. Wood is one of the most beautiful materials available today; you could think of fine wood furniture as jewelry for your home. Like fine diamonds, fine furniture can enhance the surroundings in which it's displayed.
Finish is all about fashion. It's one of the last things we do in the manufacturing process, but it's the first thing you notice. The most expensive finishes start with the most expensive materials -- fine woods from all over the world. The wood under the finish creates a lot of the cost of the end product. Some of those woods include: crotch mahogany, olive ash burl, figured cherry, maple and oak. These beautiful real woods, often in wood veneer form, create the background for a fine finish. On top of this background goes a multitude of different materials and accenting techniques. This is where the clarity allows these expensive natural wood grains to show.
Printed Finishes Imitate Real Wood
The least expensive finishes are "print" or "photo engraved" finishes. These are imitations of real wood and are just colored inks applied to a core material or paper to look like real wood. There usually is no real wood or wood veneer in this process, but it is how some companies achieve a very inexpensive product. Most of the very inexpensive furniture found at the lowest price points is printed.
Color, Look, Feel, Protection are Key to Finish
Finish could be divided into four areas; color, look, feel, and protection. Less expensive finishes are the same color as more expensive finishes, but they do not have the same look or feel. Middle to upper priced furniture has the same look as high-end furniture, but not the same feel. Protection is the amount of lacquer or clear-coats that are on the products As you go higher in price points, you find more protection through more coats or "build" of material. These differences create a lot of the cost difference in products that look very similar.
Color is what you notice about finishes when you view furniture from twenty to thirty feet away. That's why many pieces of furniture look like they are the same color if you are standing back and looking at displays in a large store. But as you get closer, ten to fifteen feet away, there are some distinctive differences. These differences on the more expensive furniture are subtle hues that blend together to create a softer, more sophisticated look. And when you get close enough to touch the furniture that may look the same from a distance, the higher priced furniture will have a softer, silkier feel. The most expensive furniture would also have more protection; the least expensive products have very little protection.
Distressing Adds Sophistication and Character
Many of today's fine finishes are achieved through special techniques intended to make the furniture look and feel like fine aged antiques. Some of those techniques are physical and some involve applied materials. Some physical techniques include: rasping; worm holes; beating with a chain or rock; and gouges. These are all designed to give furniture an aged look since really old antique furniture would have experienced this type of weathering in its normal life. Applied material techniques to achieve distressing include: spatter; glaze accenting; cow tail; and various hand padding techniques.
Most people like the look and charm of antique furniture. For most of today's needs in furniture, antiques don't quite work. Today's TVs didn't exist when a lot of antiques were made. Home office requirements for computers and other equipment didn't exist long ago. So the designers, product development people and color stylists, create a look of old aged antiques, but apply that look to furniture with a modern function.
The best way to tell the value of your furniture purchase is to closely examine the overall look and then feel how smooth it is to the touch. This is one reason it's difficult to buy furniture from a photograph; you have no opportunity to see and feel the subtle differences. Hooker Furniture gives you a great value in our finishes for your money. You get a lot of color, look, feel and protection with Hooker products. Our solid wood and real wood veneer products assure years of durability, quality and value.
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