Rediscovering an Old Friend
We’re in the midst of a re-carpeting project here at my house, and several rooms (including my little blogging office) are being cleared out so the grubby old carpet can be ripped up as we get ready for the new stuff to come in a few more days. All this emptying of rooms and moving of furniture is giving me a chance to sort through my stuff and decide what’s worth bringing back into the rooms again, and what I might want to just toss out. (And in the meantime, I sure am missing my blogging desk!)
Among the odds and ends in my blogging office that I’m sorting through is a little folding wood tray table. At first glance, you would think it would be one of the things to toss out. It’s in rough shape! It’s at least 25 years old, was used outdoors by my kids for many years, and then sat in our shed for a few more years. But a few years ago when I started blogging, I dragged it out of the shed and put it to use again. It’s a perfectly sized little table for staging many of my blogging photos. So yeah, it looks pretty bad, but I use it ALL the time. It’s still a keeper!
Breathing Life Back Into Tired Wood
And because it’s a keeper and it’s going to get a place sitting on the fancy shmancy new carpet soon, I decided it was time to show my little wood folding table some love and get it spruced up a bit. Even though I always cover it with some kind of cloth or other background for my blog photos, it still needed some TLC and I wanted it to look a little nicer sitting in the room.
The wood on this little folding table was very dried out and had several water rings and spots. I knew that one of the homemade ways to get rid of white water spots on furniture is to try mayonnaise. I’ve also used a homemade remedy for dry wood made of mayonnaise, olive oil, and lemon juice with good success in the past. So it was mayonnaise to the rescue!
The Homemade Furniture Refresh Mixture
Because the top of the table was in the worst shape, I started out by just putting straight mayonnaise on the top of the table. I let it sit for 10 minutes and then wiped it off. After this treatment, the wood looked much less dry and some of the white spots were barely visible anymore. It didn’t get rid of the spots completely, but what happens is once the wood is re-hydrated, these spots begin to look more like the natural colorations of the wood, and they don’t look as much like damage anymore.
I then finished up by wiping down the rest of the table (and the top again too) with my mayonnaise / olive oil / lemon juice mixture. This mixture also did a very nice job of re-hydrating the wood. In fact, if I could do again, I think I would skip the straight mayonnaise and just use this mixture on the whole table. I don’t think the straight mayonnaise was any more effective, and it used up quite a bit of mayonnaise.
This homemade mixture for restoring wood uses equal parts of mayo, olive oil, and lemon juice. I find that about a tablespoon of each of those ingredients makes a good size batch. Here’s how to do it:
Ingredients:
– 1 tbsp mayonnaise
– 1 tbsp olive oil
– 1 tbsp lemon juice
Combine the mayonnaise, olive oil, and lemon juice in a bowl and stir to mix together. Dip the edge of a cloth in the mixture and then wipe it across the wood, rubbing it into the wood as you go. Keep re-dipping the cloth in the mixture as needed to keep applying the mixture to the wood. I suggest you use an older rag or cloth that you don’t care about ever using again and are willing to toss out. This is a mixture with oil in it and doesn’t wash out of the cloth well. Don’t use your best microfiber cloth for this project.
Bringing the Wood Back to Life
After this treatment, my table looked MUCH better. It doesn’t look brand new of course, and the pictures here might not do it justice, but it really was a big improvement. The top of the table looked revived, and the underside looked much less dry and weathered.
It even looks good enough to be setting around the house again! So before you give up and just get rid of an old piece of wood furniture that you might still like to keep, why not give this homemade remedy a try? I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with your final results.
And who knows, maybe you’ll even be inspired to give Adam Cleaning a call to help you spruce up the rest of your home!
