This might be common knowledge, but wooden furniture has been a popular interior design element simply because it looks appealing. Wood is a traditional, beautiful, and modern interior design material. It can transform the mood of a room or entire house, creating a homely, welcoming feel.
Your wooden furniture may not be in a horrible shape, but sometimes the elements can take their toll on your wooden furniture. In this article, we’ll be showing you a couple of different options on what you can do with your wooden furniture to restore it and bring it back to life so you can once again enjoy it.
Know Your Type of Wood and Finish
It’s important before you move forward to examine the furniture and determine what type of wood your furniture is made out of. If you ordered yours from Amazon, you could look up the original listing. Another thing that’s important to establish is whether the furniture already has a finish. If you’re new to woodworking, you may not realize that the different tones on your furniture mean a finish on it.
If your furniture doesn’t already have a finish on it, you can go ahead and oil, stain it, or treat it to suit the look you’re going for. For high-quality woods, oils such as teak or Danish oils are great options to use. They are incredibly easy and not that messy to apply. They also bring out the wood’s natural beauty, and they’re wonderful at finishing and protecting the wood from the elements. Besides, the maintenance is a lot easier, because in the future all you have to do is clean the furniture and apply the oil again. The beautiful finish is a good thing for most people, especially those fond of indoor parties.
Wood Furniture Cleaning Tools
You’ll need a good amount of clean rags or old T-shirts. You’ll also need a container to hold the stain. Some people like to use plastic cups because of their convenience. This is also very sticky and messy, so disposable gloves are very helpful to get started.
Scrub the Wood Part
The most important thing you can do to protect your furniture is to clean it. You can do that by removing all of the cushions and using a detergent to get rid of all of the dirt, spider webs, and everything that is on it. Most people prefer using a teak cleaner because it is gentle on wood. Moreover, this cleaner has a really good job of cleaning wood furniture.
You’ll also need a scrubbing brush. Some steel wool or a sponge with the scrubbing pad works well for this as well.
It would be best to clean your furniture based on the instructions on the teak cleaner and brightener. First, hose down on the furniture to get it wet. You can use the teak cleaner directly on the wood for more serious jobs, or you can dilute the cleaner with some water in a bucket and use that to clean your furniture as well. Most people prefer the bucket method because it doesn’t waste as much of the cleaner.
Rinse the Cushions
Once you’re done scrubbing your furniture, thoroughly rinse off the detergent. You don’t want the cleaner to dry onto your furniture, so try to rinse it off while it’s still wet. After cleaning the wood pieces, go ahead and clean the cushions. You can do this by spraying them down with a solution of dish, soap, and water.
You can then use a sponge with a scrubbing pad and a scrubbing brush. These two work well to get your cushions super clean and closer to how they used to look.
Use An Electric Sander
With the help of an electric sander, you can get many portions of the cleaning project done so much faster than when sanding by hand. After all of the sanding is done, it’s important to get rid of all of the furniture’s dust and dirt. If you have an air compressor, you can use it to blow away all of the dust. However, you could use a rag to dust off the furniture.
Another super helpful thing is tack cloth. This is pretty much just a sticky cloth that costs about two dollars. It picks up all of the dust and dirt that’s left over, even after wiping off the furniture initially.
Common Wood Cleaning Mistakes
Most people make the mistake of not realizing there is already a finish on your furniture before applying the oil. This makes it look splotchy. What you should do is sand off any existing finish or varnish before applying a new treatment.
Another common mistake is applying the oil, realizing what you did wrong, then changing your mind and choosing to apply a stain instead of sticking with the oil. Since the oil has already seeped into the wood, it will come back up to the wood’s surface.
Key Takeaway If this is your first time cleaning your furniture, don’t worry. You’ll learn a lot from this experience. Either way, we hope this article will help you to take better care of your wood furniture.
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