Does wood need to "breath"?

If it needs to breathe, it’s got plenty of breathing surface on the underside surely? If it were a new freshly cut piece of soft wood like pine, you wouldn’t wrap that in plastic because the moisture content is high and it would go mouldy. But a table, an old table at that, would be well seasoned by now and fine to cover in plastic cloth.

It’s just like a table cloth @Stinley. It’s just draped on it.

No. Lots of wood gets smothered in polyurethane varnish, which excludes air much more effectively than your plastic covering does, and it doesn’t suffer for it. Furniture has a hard time with fluctuations in humidity; when it’s humid, the wood swells and when it’s dry the wood shrinks again. Every time it goes through that cycle joints in the furniture loosen up. If anything, covering it with plastic would moderate those swings a little.

@Dutchess_III sorry I looked at the pic, saw it was a cloth, then edited my answer. It’s a lovely table!

Thank you @Stinley. I do love it. I have a buffet to go with it. They were sold as a “set” at a Flea market many years ago, but they aren’t an actual matching “set.” They just look good together. The buffet is in the living room. I can’t wait for the day when I can have a proper dining room so the pieces can be together once again, uncovered and in all their beautiousness.

Mine does.

Why?

@Dutchess_III: p.s.: It’s “breathe” not “breath.”

I ran out of breath typing the question!

Why does my wood need to breathe? You know there is more than one definitionm for wood, doncha?

Ok.