Furniture requires upkeep. When you buy a new piece of furniture, it looks shinny and you want it to look like this always. The thing is, though; time has its way of making furniture look not so shiny and new. Eventually, polishing furniture is going to be on your list of household chores, and no one likes adding responsibilities to the list. On top of that, you have to go out and buy wood, waste, or dust polish.
Perhaps you don’t want to spend the money or don’t want to add those chemicals to your furniture. Conventional polish for your furniture can end up harming the wood in the end, so you need alternatives to get the job done. This is why we have a list of five items to use when polishing your furniture.
Shoe Polish
As mentioned in the point earlier, you don’t need to go out to buy polish at the store. Polishing wood, waste, dust, or anything else can be done with items that are in your house. Such as shoe polish. That’s right, you can use the polish you would normally use to shine your shoes on your furniture, and you will most likely be happier with the result than traditional polish. You can soften the polish by placing it in a warm area so that the substance spreads easier than if you directly used it out of the bottle.
You can use clear polish for any kind of wood and lighter brown color polish for walnut colored wood. Obviously, use a darker shade of shoe polish for darker woods. The great thing about shoe polish on wood is that it can fill up any scratches that have been visually annoying you on said furniture. It is a multi-purpose substance that can enrich the look of your furniture in no time!
Socks Instead of a Cloth
In this section, we are going to take about the vessel that is needed to be used in polishing wood. You can use clothes, but you’re going to have to recycle the same one over and over again. You also run the risk of ruining a cloth and therefore, not being able to use it moving forward for anything else. This is why an old, cotton sock is the perfect item to use. Any pair of socks that you find yourself having no interest in wearing again is perfect. Whether you are using it with oil or mayonnaise, it is soft enough to be able to scrub your wood furniture, as well as any waste or dust off of your furniture. Why else should you use a sock to polish your furniture? Well, an advantage of using a sock as opposed to a cloth is that because a sock conforms to the shape of your hand, you can get a more thorough cleaning.
Olive Oil
When you use common commercial polish, you run the risk of damaging your furniture in the long run. Polishing furniture with commercial spray can actually build up with each layer you slap on, trapping dust in between the layers. You don’t want this, because then that piece of furniture you spent so much money on will end up becoming old looking and lose its allure.
This is why you need alternatives. Such as olive oil. Most people have olive oil in their houses, so it isn’t something you have to run out to grab. With a small amount of olive oil, you can polish unpainted wood with a cloth thoroughly. Polishing wood does not need to take all of your olive oil, just a little, and then you will be cooking in no time!
Mayonnaise
Yes, the condiment that you use to spread across a crisp piece of bread for your cold cut sandwich can be used to polish your furniture. Polishing furniture has never been so easy when you are looking through your cabinets, instead of going to the store. If you see a ring in wake of a cup placed on wooden furniture, it’s possibly to get rid of that pesky ring. When you see a water ring, get a clean towel and rub mayonnaise on the spot. Then leave it overnight and in the morning, use another clean towel to rub away the mayonnaise. This may seem like an odd solution to your problem, but it is a sure way to clean up the water ring.
Next time someone forgets to use a coaster at a party, don’t panic at the sight of the water ring. Instead, go to your fridge to grab the jar of mayo and have at it! It is advised, though; that you use coasters and encourage others to do so too, so you’re not cleaning water rings every night.
Rubber Gloves
You may see this point and say to yourself, of course, you would need to use rubber gloves when you are cleaning your wood furniture. You want to keep your hands clean, so rubber gloves are a necessity when polishing your furniture. We are suggesting using your gloves for a different application. Such as, wetting your rubber gloves to pick up any pet hair that is collecting on the wood and cushions of your couch and chairs. While you are polishing furniture, you want to make sure you’re also picking up any dust that may have collected. For a simple way to clean your wood furniture, a simple wet glove trick is perfect.
Cleaning is a chore that none of us are happy about doing. It is something that needs to be done in order to maintain the house, though. Polishing furniture helps you maintain the allure that made you purchase the pieces in the first place. You may want to look away from a conventional way of polishing your wood and instead, look to household items to get the job done. With a little bit of “elbow grease”, you will get your furniture nice and clean, for both you and everyone else to enjoy.