It is easy to falter when choosing oak furniture for your home if you don't already know what style you are looking for. Furniture is essential in creating that visual impact of a room, but there is actually more to it than that. Furniture can also play its part in creating the overall feeling of a room, with light oak furniture, for example, helping to accentuate the positives or combat the negatives.

It's fair to say that mood sounds a little strange in the context of furniture, but it's not as crazy as it seems. The fact is that the furniture chosen does create a mood or atmosphere in a room. If the color of the wood is dark, then it effectively serves to reduce light in a room; if it is light in colour then is adds to the light. The style chosen, meanwhile, can create a serious, studious feel or a fun, kid-friendly feel, with classic or vintage designs often promoting the former and contemporary designs the latter.

It's something that furniture designers have been aware of for quite some time, and some of the world's best take the effects that color and design has on atmosphere very seriously. One of Britain's finest furniture design companies, Bentley Designs, has been applying these factors for years. Its Atlantis range of bedroom furniture, for example, is available in natural light oak and ivory colours to appeal to those who wish to make the most of a bedroom's limited brightness. The Aquarius range of custom-made bathroom furniture, meanwhile, is available in a natural oak colour to counter the common negative effects of small, enclosed rooms.

The reason is quite straight forward. Light oak has a bright harvest yellow hue that has a positive effect on the atmosphere of a room. It maximises the use of light, making the room seem more expansive than it really is. The sense of extra space encourages calmness in a cool, unfussy environment, which counters the closed-in feeling often associated with cluttered areas in a home.

Furniture designs using light oak are hugely popular in most rooms in a home - even the kitchen - because of its association with positive, airy and clean feelings. Arguably, the room that can benefit most is the bedroom, which can seem smaller due to space taken up the stereotypical bedroom mess, and the bathroom, which is often confined with limited light coming through small windows.

Of course, furniture for the bathroom requires more than simply an awareness of mood and space. They also need to be protected from moisture in the air. Moisture is highly destructive to wood, with swelling and the development of mould its two main effects. The bathroom is where the majority of water consumption in a home takes place, and the air is more humid there than in any other room: think of the steam created by a hot shower, for example.

For that reason, before buying any furniture for that room, you should check that the oak furniture is properly treated. There are two common methods of treating wood furniture to protect it against moisture: deep dry steaming anti-moisture treatment and the use of protective durable oils. Both are highly effective in preventing moisture from entering the wood, but neither should have any detrimental effect on the mood-value of the furniture pieces in question.

Whether you want your bathroom to be fitted in dark oak or light oak furniture, sporting a rustic effect or distressed in some other way to add character, the choice is there. Tall and small storage units, either open or closed with glass doors, can fit neatly in a corner or against a side wall, while wall units over the sink can sport either glass or mirrored doors. Oak laundry chests can stand tall, or laundry bins can sit squarely beside wash stands with two or three doors, or an open shelf below.

A glance at Bentley Designs' catalogue of specially treated furniture, in a selection of styles and finishes, give a clear picture of what options are available. So, even bathroom furniture doesn't have to be dark, dull and unimaginative but can be bright, spacious and inspirational.