Indoor teak furniture care: what works in the home

Indoors, different rules apply than in the garden. There’s no rain or frost, but there is dry air from central heating, sunlight through the window and spilt coffee. The most important difference: the advice against teak oil that you read everywhere is, at Gloster and Tribù, about teak used outdoors (Gloster, Tribù). Indoors, oil is a normal finish. The Dutch timber information centre Centrum Hout names oil and nitrocellulose lacquer as finishes for teak (Centrum Hout, Dutch).

This page covers cabinets, sideboards, TV units, side tables and chairs. For the dining table and coffee table, the indoor pieces that suffer most, there’s a separate guide: teak table care. The full overview, including outdoors, is in how to treat teak: the complete guide.

First: the indoor climate is your most important “maintenance”

Solid teak moves. Gloster explains that even after drying (in its case to a 12% moisture content), wood still absorbs and releases moisture, and so expands and contracts (Gloster). The furniture brand Muubs names variations in humidity, temperature differences and dry heat from wood stoves as causes of wood becoming rough and curved (Muubs).

What helps, according to the Dutch furniture company Meijs Wonen (source, Dutch):

• A room temperature between 15 and 24 °C (59–75 °F) and humidity between 40 and 60% to limit movement.
• At least 2 metres (about 6½ ft) from a stove, open fire or radiator.
• No direct sunlight: light makes wood discolour over time, usually darker, and not always evenly.

That last point fits with Centrum Hout, which describes the heartwood of teak darkening under the influence of light, after which large colour differences usually disappear (Centrum Hout, Dutch). The silver-grey that garden furniture manufacturers write about comes from sun and rain outdoors (Tribù).

Moving a piece from outdoors to indoors? Gloster advises against bringing teak straight from the garden into a heated room: the sudden difference in temperature and humidity can cause splitting (Gloster).

Treat it or not? Piece by piece

The Dutch teak shop Teak.nl makes a useful distinction: cabinets, sideboards and TV units usually get less intensive use than a dining table. So you can leave them untreated, and if you do get a stain, you can carefully sand it out. If you want, treat them with the same product as the table; they then get the same (possibly slightly darker) tone (Teak.nl, Dutch).

A practical rule of thumb that follows from this:

Piece	Wear	Approach
Cabinet, bookcase, sideboard (sides, fronts)	Low	Untreated is fine; dust it and wipe up moisture straight away
Sideboard top, TV unit, side table	Medium (glasses, plants, cups)	Light protection or coasters
Dining table, coffee table, desk	High	Protect it: see teak table care

On untreated wood, water marks are a familiar problem: the natural colourants dissolve in water and cause odd colour differences. Wax is sensitive to moisture too (Meijs Wonen, Dutch). So always put a plant pot or vase on an untreated sideboard on a coaster.

Still deciding which indoor piece suits you? The buying guide to indoor teak furniture covers quality and types.

Indoor finishes in brief

• Clear water-based protector: hardly changes the colour, protects against dirt and moisture, less so against grease (Troedoor, Dutch).
• Water-based impregnating oil: better protection against water, grease and oil; the sources differ on whether the wood darkens, so test first (Troedoor, Dutch, Teak.nl, Dutch).
• Oil: matt, warm look, reasonable to good protection against stains; scratches and small dents can be worked out with a scouring pad and then re-oiled (Meijs Wonen, Dutch).
• Wax or wax oil: warm colour and a light sheen, but limited protection against moisture (Meijs Wonen, Dutch).
• Wood soap: cleans and gives light protection against moisture and stains while keeping the natural look (Meijs Wonen, Dutch).
• Lacquer: the easiest to maintain; wiping with a slightly damp, soft cloth is enough (Meijs Wonen, Dutch).

Step-by-step instructions per product, with drying times and number of coats, are in teak table care; they apply just as well to a sideboard top.

Method: treating an indoor piece

1. Empty it, dust it and clean it. Use a suitable wood cleaner; avoid strong soap or harsh cleaning products, which dissolve an oil finish (Muubs).
2. Degrease and let it dry. The surface must be clean before you apply a new coat (Troedoor, Dutch).
3. Sand stains or rough patches lightly with very fine sandpaper, always along the grain (Meijs Wonen, Dutch). Use dust extraction or a dust mask: Centrum Hout notes that substances in teak can cause skin conditions such as eczema in sensitive people (Centrum Hout, Dutch).
4. Test on a hidden spot, such as the back or underside (Teak.nl, Dutch).
5. Apply thinly, wipe off excess product and keep to the drying times on the label. With an impregnating oil, work in a room at 15–20 °C (59–68 °F) (Troedoor, Dutch).
6. With oil, treat every side the first time. Muubs advises this to saturate the wood evenly and avoid curving (Muubs).
7. Deal with rags safely. A rag with wax oil can self-ignite: rinse it thoroughly with water or keep it in a closed tin (Troedoor, Dutch).

How often? That depends on the finish. Muubs advises oiling its oiled indoor furniture once a month for the first six months and then about 3 to 4 times a year, and gives a handy test: if water forms pearls on the surface, it doesn’t need oiling yet (Muubs). For wax oil, the Dutch teak furniture company Troedoor gives 2 to 3 times a year (Troedoor, Dutch). A cabinet you rarely touch obviously needs less than a much-used sideboard top.

Reclaimed and old teak indoors

A lot of indoor teak is made from reclaimed wood. Troedoor, which works with reclaimed teak itself, describes what to expect (Troedoor, Dutch):

• Knots, unevenness and inset repair pieces are part of reclaimed teak.
• Small cracks from light, humidity and temperature are a natural process; when conditions change, they can close again. Permanent cracks can be filled with wood filler (“liquid wood”).
• Be careful with a closed lacquer coat on brushed teak: on brushed reclaimed teak, black-blue stains can appear under a two-component (2K) lacquer, because dirt in small holes in the wood is pushed up by the oily substances but can’t escape.

Muubs likewise calls small cracks between the grain lines natural and harmless (Muubs).

And the bathroom?

A bathroom is indoors, but with far more moisture and heat. That brings its own points to watch, which we cover in a separate guide: teak bathroom vanity.