Preserve the Natural Beauty of Wood Furniture with Quick and Easy Maintenance Tips

Maintain your table’s gleam with the right furniture polish

With just a little extra effort, you’ll ensure that the wood furnishings you buy today become the antiques of tomorrow. Today’s quality wood furniture is relatively easy to care for, and there are a number of quick, easy and inexpensive things you can do to maintain your furniture’s lasting beauty.

Dusting and Polishing

Most furniture manufacturers recommend dusting with soft cloths, old T-shirts or baby diapers. You can even slip on two old cotton gloves or socks to dust with both hands. Do be sure to moisten your dust cloth with a dusting spray product, because a dry cloth can leave hairline scratches on the furniture finish. Always follow the grain pattern of the wood with the motion of your cloth. Most important? Dust often. You’ll be sure to remove those abrasive particles that tend to collect on the wood’s surface.

Another tip — always lift lamps and other accessories when you’re dusting. Dragging them across the furniture surface can scratch the finish. Consider placing pieces of felt or leather under accessories, because rubber lamp bases, lamp cords and some types of plastic materials can soften finishes over time.

If your furniture needs polish, choose one that’s appropriate for the finish. For example, high luster furniture is best served by a liquid polish or paste wax that dries to a high shine. Low luster or satin finish furniture requires a non-grease cream polish or wax that protects without shine. And natural, oil-finished furniture should be oiled with either boiled linseed oil or the oil originally used by the manufacturer. A good rule of thumb is to wax or polish your furniture every six to 12 months. Before you start, be sure to remove the old wax with a mild non-alkaline soap and solution to avoid build-up.

Climate Control

Two of the biggest enemies of wood furniture are moisture and dry air. Since wood is a natural material, it responds to changes in humidity. If there’s too much moisture in the air, parts of wood furniture may absorb it and expand causing drawers to stick. On the other hand, if the air is extremely dry, the furniture tends to lose moisture and shrink.

But there are a number of preventative things you can do to protect your furniture from climate changes:

• Use a humidifier in the winter and air conditioning in the summer to keep the relative humidity at 25 to 35 percent.
• Store tabletop leaves near the table itself — not in a damp basement. This way, the leaves are adjusting to the same relative humidity as the table.
• Avoid placing solid hardwood furniture in front of radiators or other heat sources.
• Don’t expose finely finished surfaces to constant, direct sunlight. Draw the curtains occasionally.

Stain Solutions

If you get to them right away, most furniture stains can be removed with simple home remedies. Some quick solutions to the most common stain problems include:

Water Rings: moisten a cloth, dip it in cigar or cigarette ashes and rub the spot gently. You can also rub the spot with salad oil, mayonnaise or white toothpaste. Sometimes, these rings are in the wax and not the finish. If this is the case, cover the stain with a clean thick blotter, press down with a warm iron and repeat.

Milk or Alcohol: rub liquid or paste wax into the stain. Or rub in a paste of boiled linseed oil and rottenstone with the grain. For another option, rub with ammonia on a dampened cloth. Then, simply wipe dry and if needed, wax or polish.

White Marks: rub with a cloth dipped in a mixture of cigarette ashes and lemon juice or salad oil. Or rub with a damp cloth dipped in lighter fluid, followed by a mixture of rottenstone and salad oil and wipe dry.

Nail Polish: blot the spot immediately, then rub it with fine steel wool (#0000) dipped in wax. Make sure the steel wool package has at least four zeros on it as anything coarser could damage furniture.

Paint: if it’s fresh, remove latex paint with water. Oil-based paint can be removed with mineral spirits. If the paint has already dried, soak the spot in boiled linseed oil, wait until the paint softens and then lift carefully with a putty knife or wipe with a cloth dampened with boiled linseed oil. The residue can be removed by rubbing along the grain with a paste of boiled linseed oil and rottenstone.

There are quick and easy solutions to other problems, too. For example, if paper becomes stuck to a polished table, simply saturate the paper with cooking oil and let it sit for approximately five minutes. The paper should peel right off. And what about cigarette burns? Simply rub the burns with some scratch-concealing polish along the grain until the burn mark disappears. Gum? Hold an ice cube wrapped in a cloth against it. Once the gum has hardened, use your fingernail or a plastic credit card to remove it. If that doesn’t complete the job, rub the area with extra-fine (#0000) steel wool dipped in mineral spirits.

Scratch Savers

Over time, your furniture may get small scratches or dents. Sometimes, they actually enhance the natural beauty of the piece over time. But for unsightly scratches, try the following (be sure to test a small, inconspicuous area of the furniture first to make sure these mixtures won’t harm the finish):

• Dark Wood or Stain: fill scratches with a shoe polish that matches the lightest shade of the finish or rub with walnut or Brazil nut meat in the direction of the scratch. You can even use a child’s crayon or a felt-tipped marker to fill in the scratch.
• Cherry: fill the scratches with cordovan or reddish shoe polish that matches the wood, or apply darkened iodine with a cotton swab or a thin artist’s brush.
• Light wood or Stain: fill scratches with a tan or natural shoe polish, or apply darkened iodine diluted to 50 percent with denatured alcohol.