Antique Tips for Furniture Restoration
If you have found a piece of antique wood furniture at a garage sale or inherited it and it needs restoration, there are a few aspects to this process you should know. Even if the piece is in really bad shape, you would be surprised what a little care can do for such a piece.
Look all around the piece of furniture and remove knobs, handles, and any other kind of hardware that may be on the piece. Sometimes it may be missing or broken, but remove what you can to prepare it for cleaning.
It is important to look at the piece carefully to see if there is anything that appears stained or built up as this will take a little more cleaning.
Your best option for cleaning most antique furniture is to use a very fine steel wool pad, paper towels, and a furniture cleaner that is designed for antique furniture cleaning. Make sure to read the directions on the bottle before you begin.
Start with just one small section and see how the cleaner and steel wool work to remove any stains. If it seems to be doing the trick, continue on. You may have to put a bit of elbow grease into it especially if the stains have been there a long time. Dab off any excess cleaner with your paper towels.
Allow the furniture to dry thoroughly. It may need a few cleaning applications before you see an improvement. Once it looks good, then you can decide if you want to stain it and add the old hardware back on or replace it with new hardware that has an antique look.