Wow – what IS the trend for wooden forms of transport? No sooner have we discovered a Carlos Alberto’s beautiful wooden Vespa than we find a wooden racing car right here in the UK! 
Welcome to the latest Terry Waters French Polishing News and Blogs
First a wooden Vespa – now a wooden car! Our wood restoration dreams move from two wheels to four
full listTurning our French polishing expertise to country houses
Oh how we love watching Channel 4’s Country House Rescue here at Terry Waters French Polishing.
Let us work our magic on your wooden floor
Such is the pervasiveness of the continuing trend for exposed wooden floorboards, it seems unthinkable that once pretty much every pub, restaurant and home you walked into had wall-to-wall carpets throughout.
Wooden Wonders we’d like to have French polished: 22. The Statues of the Apostles, Prague
Any visitor to Prague will tell you of the city’s picture-box beauty, and in the heart of the old town is a real gem for tourists – the medieval astronomical clock.
Call in Terry Waters French Polishing – we’ll aim to leave you beaming at our wood restoration expertise
Exposed wood timbers in buildings are very much in vogue in home design – and indeed, they almost always have been!
Wooden Wonders we’d like to have French polished: 19. Kapellbrücke
Kapellbrucke, or Chapel Bridge, is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe. You’ll fine it spanning the Reuss River, in Lucerne, Switzerland, and it really is something of a wooden wonder – inside the bridge, you’ll find paintings dating back to the 17th century.
Call in the French polishers to help perfect your reclaimed wood
Salvage yards are a great place to go looking for reclaimed wood – but it’s important to remember that the wood you’re buying will be in need of a little tender loving care to restore it to its former glory.
Wooden Wonders we’d like to have French Polished: 16. Elizabeth I’s throne
We’re proud of our long years of experience here at Terry Waters French Polishing – after all, it’s our skills and expertise that make us leaders in the French Polishing field – but even we have to confess we’re not SO old that we were around in the time of Queen Elizabeth I.
French Polishers confess – our favourite wood is oak
Now, we don’t like to admit to having a “favourite” wood type. It would be a bit like asking to you to pick your favourite child! But, well – maybe not quite like that, actually, because it turns out we CAN pick a favourite type of wood. It’s a tough choice, but we reckon oak is the wood closest to a French polisher’s heart.
Why? Well, it’s down to the fact that oak is both an all-rounder and something special, all at the same time. It’s got a beautiful grain running through it, particularly when quarter-sawn – that means when the wood is cut towards the heart of the log, or at right-angles to the growth rings. Cutting the wood in this way tends to be a little more wasteful, and so quarter-sawn oak will tend to be more expensive to buy, but it’s worth it when a French polisher goes to work to bring out the natural beauty of that exposed oak grain. Polishing up quarter-sawn oak will bring out “ray fleck” – tiny, beautiful markings within the wood – enhancing its originality. You can see this effect in everything from oak panelling and oak wood floorboards to oak furniture and oak wood structural frames. With such an effect, it’s no wonder this versatile wood has been highly prized since the Middle Ages.
Don’t just take our word for it, though – oak is like a celebrity A-lister in the world of wood. There’s the Royal Oak, of course, in which legend has it King Charles II hid to escape the Roundheads. Although not standing today, its descendants live on at Boscobel House on the Shropshire/Staffordshire border. And look out for oak making its mark politically, in the wood panelling of the debating chamber in the House of Commons.
For us, bringing out the beauty of oak is always a real pleasure. But although oak is a favourite, we simply love working with any wood – or modern laminates, veneers and substitutes – to ensure our clients get the perfect finish they were looking for.
The painstaking beauty of French Polishing
Here at Terry Waters French Polishing, we’re nothing if not perfectionists. Like an animator, a traditional lace-maker or one of those artists who creates tiny sculptures in the eye of a needle, we know that if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth taking your time over.
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