Whether you're looking for bathroom furniture or kitchen furniture, oak is your best choice of material. Not only is oak the most attractive wood available, it also has the virtues of being extremely durable and easy to take care of. In short, oak furniture is stylish, long lasting and a pleasure to look after.

Of course, oak furniture doesn't come cheap- real quality never does, but considering the decades of pleasure and use it will give you, you should regard it as a fine investment. What's more, if you buy furniture online, you can get the keenest prices in the UK. Here's your guide to oak furniture and how to buy furniture online.

Let's say, for example, you want to buy bedroom furniture. Oak is a great choice for beds, cabinets and bedside tables if you want products that will stand any level of use and still look great. You just need a little waxing and polishing every now and again.

Or say you want kitchen furniture. Again oak is the material of choice. Not only will it create a warm and stylish atmosphere in your kitchen, it will also withstand the knocks and heat and moisture that occur in the average kitchen. It's this blend of beauty and strength that make oak such a sublime wood.

Now let's look at the smart way to buy oak furniture. As when buying any fine item, it always pays to buy from a specialist outlet. You're sure to find the choicest pieces of oak furniture with a vendor who specializes in this particular product.

Having found a vendor, you need to know what you're buying. Your choices are solid oak and oak veneered furniture. The latter comprises a layer of oak on top of a lower quality wood such as pine. Veneer furniture is popular and has its attractions. It's also much cheaper, of course, but make sure you know what you're getting.

Next you need to consider the shade of oak you want. This will depend on personal preferences and the existing colour scheme in your rooms. Also find out whether the furniture is waxed or sealed. It will influence the way you need to take care of it.

After that, you need to find out how the furniture has been constructed. You want furniture that has been put together by craftsmen using traditional methods not by simply gluing the pieces together. Traditional wood furniture which has been constructed using traditional dovetail joints is far more durable than that which has been glued together in a factory.

Finally, find out how soon your furniture will be delivered and what the charges are. Oak is a dense and heavy wood so the furniture will weigh a lot. Transport charges could be significant.

Given the complexity of finding out all the above information, you could spend a lot of time going around the various shops and outlets in your area. Or you could do it the smart way and buy furniture online. This is what savvy consumers do and it offers many advantages.

For one thing, you can browse a whole range of vendors from the comfort of your home. All reputable vendors have well-illustrated online catalogues that give all the information you need to make your purchase. You can choose the style and colour from the images and check such factors as price, weight and size. You can just do it all at your own pace and not have to listen to any salesman whose agenda may well be to sell you the most expensive items in the store.

Meanwhile the online vendor can offer you rock bottom prices as he has no showroom to maintain and no sales staff to compensate.

Another great thing about online furniture shopping is that most reputable UK suppliers offer free delivery to addresses in mainland Britain. This can result in major savings.

Whether you're in the market for kitchen furniture or bathroom furniture or indeed for any room in your house, you'll find that the beauty, strength and ease of maintenance of oak makes for the best buys. It will give you years of use and when you buy furniture online you'll get the best choices and the best deals.