Short answer: sun damage is a slow, one-way meter. UV light yellows a clear lacquer and bleaches a stain in 2–3 years on furniture that lives beside a west-facing window, and no oil or polish reverses it — you can only slow the meter down. Curtains or a film that block 80–85% of UV cut the damage by the same factor, and furniture kept at 8–10% wood moisture content resists the cracking that follows the fading.
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The cruel part is that the damage is cumulative and invisible. A coffee table looks fine for two summers, then one autumn morning the half under the window is two shades paler than the half that lived under the sofa arm. Wood remembers every sunny day.
How much sun is too much
Not all windows are equal. A north-facing window is nearly harmless; a west window serves the strongest, hottest light of the day exactly when nobody is home to close a curtain:
| Exposure | Visible change | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| North light, indirect | Barely fades over 10+ years | Nothing |
| East/south, 2–3 h direct | Noticeable in 4–6 years | Sheer curtains; rotate the piece twice a year |
| West, 4+ h direct | Visible in 2–3 years | UV film or lined curtains; move or shade the piece |
| Conservatory / sunroom | One summer can do it | Do not put finished wood in a glass box at all |
The 85% fix: curtains and film
Two tools do 90% of the work. Lined or blackout curtains block about 85% of incoming UV whenever they are closed — close them on bright afternoons and the furniture behind them is effectively in the shade. Static-cling UV window film blocks up to 99% of UV while staying transparent, costs less than a takeaway dinner per window, and is the standard answer for rented flats and conservatories. Cheap blinds help too, but slat blinds still feed the wood direct light for half the day.
Moisture: the 8-10% rule nobody checks
Fading is the cosmetic problem; the expensive one is drying. Wood that bakes in daily sun dries below 8% moisture content and starts checking — hairline cracks along the grain, usually on the sun-facing side of tops and legs. Indoors, healthy wood sits at 8–10%; keep the room off radiator-maximum in winter and a small bowl of water near the piece is not folk medicine, it genuinely slows surface drying. What sun and dry air do together, neither does alone.
The habits that actually help
- Rotate every 3 months. Turn the table 90°, swap the chair positions, move the tray. Even fading beats a sunburn line.
- Use runners and mats. A 2 cm felt-backed runner takes the daily direct hit instead of the varnish.
- Dust with a damp cloth. Dust is slightly abrasive and slightly heat-retentive; a dusty table fades unevenly.
- Re-oil oiled wood twice a year. A drying oil layer sacrifices itself before the wood does — five minutes with a cloth, spring and autumn.
- Keep photos of the finish. If you ever claim on insurance or a warranty, "before" photos from year one are the evidence.
Can you fix it once it has faded?
Mostly no, and that honesty saves money. Bleached stain can sometimes even out with a tinted oil or wax, but yellowed lacquer means sanding and respraying — a job that costs more than most flat-pack tables are worth. Prevention is the only cheap end of this problem. A 15 € roll of UV film protects every piece of wood in the room at once, which is a better deal than respraying any single one of them.
Keep reading
More dimension guides are in the collection, and the full index is on the furnolio journal.
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