Cleaning Wood Furniture

Have I ever mentioned that ONE of my problems is . . . if I’m not confident about how to clean something, I let my fear of doing it wrong keep me from doing it at all?

No?  Well, it is.  (One of them.)

I love wood furniture, and as long as dusting is all that needs to be done to keep it looking beautiful, I feel pretty good.  But when wood gets dirty, like . . . needs-to-be-cleaned-for-real, I freeze.

So, when I had the opportunity to try out Guardsman Wood Cleaner, I was glad for the chance/motivation to tackle some projects I’d been putting off for a long time.

I know from experience that just scrubbing wood like you do any other surface doesn’t work very well. For example, here’s our high chair:

(Yes, I still have it even though our youngest child turned six last week. That will surely be the subject of another post!)

Anyway, you can see that the finish was scrubbed off along with the peanut butter and pureed peas that my three babies smeared on it.  I didn’t feel that I had much choice on an item like this.  It had to be cleaned using whatever method was most efficient at the moment.

But . . . the resulting damage to the wood is an example of why I put off cleaning other wood pieces that CAN wait.  I’m scared to devalue them.

The photo at the top of the post is of my rocking chair, which was also my mother’s rocking chair.  It is beautiful and has significant sentimental value.

It was also used daily for rocking, feeding and burping three babies.  (The youngest of whom is now six, as I mentioned above.)

I have a vague memory of cleaning it once, but five years later . . . the rocking chair still had a few splatter spots.

The Guardsman instructions say to spray the cleaner onto a clean cloth.  I was surprised that it came out as a foam.  I tried using it both before and after the foam had soaked into the rag, and it seemed to work equally well both ways.

Here’s the rocking chair after I cleaned it with the Guardsman Wood Cleaner:

A closer view:

 

I was pleased with how it worked, though I did have to use a little muscle on some spots.

My favorite thing?  This cleaner didn’t stink!

That’s another one of my big (totally logical) excuses – stinky cleaners.  The can doesn’t say that it’s unscented, but my Bionic Nose (as my husband calls it) didn’t detect any scent, especially nothing worthy of making an excuse to not use it!

A few things about Guardsman:

• Guardsman and design star Tracy Hutson are challenging Americans to rethink traditional furniture cleaning by giving furniture its own beauty routine with their “Stop Cleaning. Start Caring” campaign.
• You can share your favorite furniture story on Guardsman.com and Tracy Hutson will select one lucky winner to receive a personal design session in their home. This includes a $1500 room re-accessorizing and shopping experience, plus a suite of Guardsman products!
• Guardsman is donating $25,000 to Habitat for Humanity to kick off this campaign!

Do you ever put off cleaning jobs because you’re not sure how to do them?