Environmental Impact

Environmental Accountability

Proper Wood Finishing has been in the business of “saving the environment” well before it was cool, trendy, or profitable. Whether we are rescuing a precious antique or finishing your kitchen cabinets, our goals are the same: a beautiful finish, and durability will keep your woodwork protected and cherished for future generations. We live in a very regulated society, one that is designed to protect our environment and the health and safety of the public. Some of these regulations are local, some are federal.

Proper Wood Finishing, as all businesses in our industry, is legally mandated to use low V.O.C. (volatile organic compound) except when doing “like and kind” restoration. Some of these new products are well-designed and increase the longevity of your woodwork and reduce our impact on the environment. Others are poorly made and cause more pollution due to early failure of the finish. Our job at Proper Wood Finishing is to research all materials that we apply, select ones that are legally compliant, appropriate to the age of the item, and durable as to reduce the future need for refinish and add to the beauty of the item. While regulatory trends are towards the use of water-borne finishes, these products are not always the safest for the environment, applicator’s health, durability, and appearance. You can always trust that we have done the research needed to use the most appropriate finish available to enhance your woodwork.

Health and Safety

While we generally do not think of our furniture as being detrimental to our health and our personal environment, there are people that are quite sensitive to certain chemicals. There is also the fear that our children may chew on crib rails or our woodwork may come in contact with food products. A few years ago, we had a customer, a young lawyer, who was expecting triplets and needed the woodwork in her master suite finished. Taking into account the underlying chemistry of the products we use, we worked with her to choose a finish system that will keep her and her children safe and secure.

Green Marketing

The reason that we protect our woodwork has not changed since we started cutting trees and bringing them into our homes. Durability, beauty, renewability and longevity are the keys to making our furniture last as long as possible. There is a wave of new “environmental” products that purport to solve these key goals with a handy one-coat wipe-on application. Some of these “miracle” products are nothing more than solvent-based waxes (twelfth century) technology that are not legally required to list all of their ingredients according to some government regulations. Some of these products are low V.O.C water-borne materials that due to poor chemistry fail within a few years of application and are next to impossible remove when refinishing is needed. Some manufactures instruct you to “just apply” a few coats of oil to protect your new furniture. While easy to apply these products will not provide long-term protection and must be removed and an appropriate finish applied if you are to use the furniture for more than a few years.

As a cherished customer of Proper Wood Finishing, you can rest assured that we have the long-term health of both your furniture and your family at the forefront of everything we do.