- Solution for sunlight damage
Sunlight can wreak havoc on your furniture, but you can restore it to its former lustre with plain old petroleum jelly. Use a soft cloth to rub a good amount into the wood until the finish perks up. Remove any excess with a clean cloth, and then polish the wood to renew its shine.
- Tea time for grime
To remove accumulated grime on wooden furniture, put two tea bags in a litre of boiling water and allow to cool. Dip a soft cloth into the solution, wring it out and then test it in an inconspicuous area on the table. If you’re pleased with the results, wipe down one section of the piece at a time. Continue dipping, wringing and wiping until all the old polish has been removed. Let it dry, buff with a soft dry cloth, then stand back and watch it glow.
- Steam out a dent
You can sometimes repair a small, shallow dent in wooden furniture with a warm, damp cloth and a steam iron. Fold the cloth and place it over the dent, then press down with the tip of a warm iron for several seconds. If the dent doesn’t swell, repeat, but don’t overdo it. You need to provide just enough moisture to swell the wood back to its original size. (Don’t do this on shellacked or painted finishes.)
- Repair veneer edging with an iron
If veneer stripping or edging is bulging or popping up from the surface of a piece of furniture, lay a warm, damp cloth over it and press down with the tip of a warm iron for several seconds. Once it’s flattened, roll the edging with a rolling pin.
- Unstick a drawer
Wooden drawers can become stuck for all sorts of reasons, but the most common cause is excessive humidity. Although you can’t see it, the wood fibres actually swell from the extra moisture in the air. To shrink them back to their original size, use a hair dryer on a warm setting, directing it to the drawer slides and the drawer itself — which should open with ease after a few minutes. For stuck drawers that are more stubborn, try rubbing the sides, bottom edges and slides with lip balm, a bar of soap or paraffin wax or beeswax.
- Lubricate metal drawer runners
Rust and other deposits can cause metal drawer runners to seize up or to move unevenly. Keep them running smoothly and free of rust by lubricating them occasionally with a smear of petroleum jelly or a squirt of WD-40.
- Hassle-free hardware
If you want to keep the shine in decorative brass handles and knobs, give them a coat of clear nail varnish or clear lacquer. This simple task will provide years of protection against the damage wrought by skin oils and tarnishing.
- Revive sagging cane seats
The more use it gets, the more a cane seat is likely to sag. To tighten a baggy seat, first soak two or three tea towels in hot water and wring them out lightly. Then turn the chair over and lay the hot towels on the bottom of the seat for about 30 minutes. Remove the towels and let the seat air-dry and then give the cane at least 12 hours to shrink back into place. The revived seat will be tighter and firmer to sit on.
- Tighten loose joints
A bit of woodworking adhesive is usually all that you need to secure a wobbly chair leg or rail. But if the joint is very loose, adhesive alone may not do the job. An easy way to solve the problem is to increase the width of the tenon (the contoured end of the loose piece) by coating it with wood adhesive and wrapping it with cotton thread or by adding a wood shaving. (If you decide on the latter, choose a shaving that’s uniformly thick for a consistent fit.) Let the adhesive dry, and then glue the tenon back into the mortise.
- Reglue it right
Most wobbly furniture can be fixed by simply regluing the parts back together — but since new glue won’t stick to old dried glue, the key is to get rid of the old stuff. One of the best tools for getting rid of dried glue is the small wire-bristle brush you can get for cleaning car battery terminals. The external brush (shaped like a tiny fir tree) is ideal for removing glue from mortises and holes, while the internal brush is perfect for scraping dried glue from small tenons and dowel ends.
- Paste over a minor burn
Although fewer people smoke in their homes these days, burn marks on wooden furniture are a more common problem than you might think. If the scorch doesn’t go below the finish, you can usually rub it out with a paste made of fine ash (wood or cigarette ash) and lemon juice (2 parts ash to 1 part juice). Wipe the area clean, then polish and wax.