Until now in our DIY series, we have hung things on the walls, we play the holes that we have made and fix chirriant floors. It’s time to have a little fun. This month, we will return some old furniture to life.
It probably has a furniture that needs a small FTA: a family relic or a favorite table that looks a little mistreated. The desk that I am restoring here was a rescue at a curb, and I really was in bad appearance when I found it, all worse after spending a night in the rain. But as soon as I touched it, I realized that I was wonderful well done, and I loved its simple lines and balanced proportions.
To relive it, I had to go through the four steps of a complete furniture restoration: clean, repair, presolor and refinement. And it cannot be avoided: it took some time and patience. But he did not take any particular skill or specialized tools. I’m sure you can do it. And you can break the work to adapt to your schedule.
The good news is that few restorations require almost much effort. Most need nothing more than thorough cleaning, some touch -ups with stains to hide minor damage and a little wax to recover the original brightness.
In fact, if there is a lesson to maintain the first duration of the mind any restoration project is that going too far is the fatal fog. Old furniture is beautiful because their shows are age. The tables fade into the sun in the sun. The chair arms darke where the hands have touched them. My desk was originally a uniform amber tone; His rich patina came from decades of service in the classrooms of New York.
If I got rid of that, I would get rid of what makes the desk wonderful. So I didn’t try to make the finishing uniform again. I just harmonize its elements hiding spots and spots that year. I think about it how to tune in a piano: you are not making the keys sound the same. You are making them play together.
Most of what I know about the restoration of furniture I learned from Tom Johnson, a ship’s teacher whose soft voice YouTube videos are a practical instruction treasure. Close all projects in the same modest way: “I think it looks pretty good.”
The tools and finishing products that I chose can be used inside a house or apartment, without noisy machinery or harmful fumes. You may have to visit a specialized store or order online for some of them.
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Microfiber For initial cleaning
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A narrow spatula – Idally one with a very thin edge – to lift the stubborn persecution of the wood surface
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TO Dental scraper To clean the dirt of cracks and holes
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Water -based wood filling To fix cracks and holes. I used black filling for color contrast; The neutral filling can be dyed to match the wood.
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Pen To dye small imperfections so that they coincide with the existing wood finish.
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To collect larger areas of the desktop, I used Alcohol-Soluf dyes. (He doesn’t need it unless he faces the same task). Dissolve in 99 percent of high -gran -grain rubbing alcohol. Everclear works very well.
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Sandpaper (in 150, 180 and 220 grain), Brief-Grayand qualification #0000 steel woolTo soften the wood filling and damaged wood, soft washing and final surface finish. A bit Metal enamel I got rid of the Tareh in the drawer shooters.
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Howard Feed-N-Wax and Osmo Poly-X. The food and wax conditioner provides general protection and brightness to almost any wood surface, including the finishes. It is a big thing to keep by hand. Hard wax oil finishes as Poly-X should only be applied to naked wood. Its durability and repunability make the issue ideal for tables and counter (and Poly-X is food safe).
Let’s start.
1. Clean and repair
There is no special trick to clean furniture, but there are some not to do. Do not use oil soap (I’m sorry, Murphy), which leaves a fatty residue. And do not use those lemon aerosols (sorry, commitment), which leave a silicone residue.
If you need to make any wood repair, water -based wood filling is more pleasant to use than solvent, emit ferwer fumes. (Water -based fillings will be labeled as such; I have succeeded with Goodfilla and Famowood.) Use it to fill cracks, gaps and nail holes, pressing it with the putty knife and scraping the excess as it advances. Clean with a wet cloth what the scraping does not get. If you are filling the long gaps between the boards as I did on the desk, masking them with the minterter tape, the big reductions of cleaning time.
When the filling is dry (generally an hour or less), he lies carefully with the surface, the bar not to eliminate much of the surrounding finish.
2. RECOVE
With clean and soft wood, you are ready to address color imperfections.
Spots pens are invaluable in any furniture restoration. The Mohawk fine -tip pens that I used can collect fine scratches without wood bite around them. You can also use them to fill live to match the color of the furniture and to recreate grain patterns to disguise the bleached areas.
While working, back from the piece regularly and look at it from the other side of the room. Your eye needs distance between natural color variations that should be left alone and stains that need treatment.
The pens I used contain solar dyes with alcohol (not oil transmitted pigments), which have a useful property: the more applique layers, the more saturated the color will be. That allows you to drag you about the color you aim at. A set of three pens that comprises a yellow tone (also known as pine or amber), a red (mahogany, cherry) and a brown (walnut, van dyke) will allow you to combine almost any wood color by layers.
Working carefully, thought: dye spots are permanent.
3. Reduce
Wooden finishes seal the wood, protect it against spills and give it a uniform shine. There are many varieties, so I chose two that are easy to apply and that I have used with excellent results.
For the legs, the frame and the drugs of my desk, I used Howard Feed-N-Wax. It is a wooden conditioner and wood protector that everything, and is essentially a thin paste of orange oil, mineral oil and natural waxes. It is intended to relive furniture whose original finish is still present, but has begun to seem faded, and all the many DIY restorations need wild. Simply clean a layer, let me soak in 15 or 20 minutes, then clean any excess and amateur with a cloth. Leave a soft and satin shine and give a charming depth to the wooden grain.
For the top of the desktop, I used Osmo Poly-X, a so-called hardwax oil. Made of vegetable oils, wax and a soft solvent, hard wax oils only apply to naked wood, not on existing finishes. (The upper part of the desk had been completely stripped before he found it: a layer of adhesive vinyl sheets was someone’s attempt to protect naked wood). They are easy to apply, create lasting, stained and resistant water damage, and Wue Wue and Wue relieve dadcage, and Yeaasist dase and damage, and damage and damage and Yee and Yee and Yee and Yee damage and Yee and Yee damages and Yee and Yee and Yee and Yee the damage of Wevy, and the damage of and the damage of Wevy, and the Wuey and Wissy damage, and the damage of the Eagy Wuey, and Jee Wissy’s damage, and Jee facilitates the damage, and before damage: and Ye Wuey Eagy’s damage: Dab in the damaged area.
The initial Poly-X layer revealed some patches in which the wood had lost all its natural color over the years, so while the Poly-X was still law, I quickly brushed the bleached areas with thin layers of two alcohol and mixed dyes that MyD had mixed. Trantint Honey Amber. This led its color to a closed match with the rest of the top. A second layer of poly-x, applied a day later, sealed the color.
Here is the finished desk.
I think it looks pretty good, although it is definitely not perfect. I did not approach several deep spots at the top of the desk, for example. That would have meant using oxalic acid to eliminate an iron stain and a strong solvent to draw an ink spill. Neinder Technique is dangerous, but exceed the limits of an inner weekend project.
I can try them next time, he thought. Which, for me, will come son, because he didn’t want a desk on the sidewalk. Luckily, I found a couple up.
