Furniture restoration can mean different things to various people. Some people want restored furniture to look new, others want furniture to appear well maintained, and to keep evidence of age and usage, which is often referred to instead as "conservation". Purists prefer conservation, and scoff at those who "skin" furniture by removing the finish. Many Who is right? Is conservation better than restoration, or is beauty in the eye of the beholder?

By avoiding stripping off the old finish, and touching up and restoring damages to the finish, the furniture retains the patina it has acquired over the years. The term "patina" encompasses various age and environmentally-related influences upon furniture. Light, especially sunlight, and even dim incandescent bulbs in a sunless elevator will bleach the color of the wood over the years, and reduce the contrast of the wood grain. Light bleaching makes the grain appear more homogeneous in color, with less range between the light and dark colors in the wood, and especially fades red colors, and lightens all the colors in the wood. Oxidation of the finish reduces the clarity of the finish, making it appear murkier and eventually darker, semi-opaque, or even black and alligatored, to make the furniture look as if it was in a fire. If one was a purist and always preferring conservation, then the advanced deterioration of an old finish should be treasured, and to some it is. But visiting any upscale antique show, one will rarely find a piece with dark, severe oxidation of a French polished shellac finish. Antique dealers would not admit it, but they will generally skin a severely oxidized furniture finish they find because too few prospective clients will value furniture in that blackened condition unless it is medieval or from the Renaissance period.

Similarly, if an antique piece of furniture suffered prolonged damage from humidity, causing the piece to have black rings as from a vase, or a grayish tone from years of cleaning with a damp cloth and the resultant proliferation of bacteria which turns the color gray or black, few would appreciate it in that condition. Most dealers would not admit it, but would anyway strip the existing finish, and bleach with oxalic acid, which kills the bacteria, and restore the color of the wood prior to the bacterially induced discoloration. The difference in appearance can be striking after treatment with oxalic acid, and it is a treatment that is not possible to visibly detect, and maybe not at all, without destructive analysis of the wood.

Most would agree that sanding the wood surface of an antique piece is not an acceptable treatment, as it will look almost new afterward. Yet, that was the preferred treatment for many of the highest quality European marquetry decorated furniture recently. Displaying furniture in one's home without highly polished brass and glossy French polished shellac finishes would have been deemed an insult to guests. Today, conservationists cringe at the thought of such invasive maintenance. But in the past, seeing the bleaching of an ebeniste's beautiful dyeing of marquetry, hiding the original contrast and bright colors of exquisite floral marquetry would have been a shame.

The conclusion may be drawn that conservation or restoration practices applied to furniture evolves over time, is subject to fashion, and the whims of the marketplace.