What's the best way to clean unfinished wood furniture?
June 21, 2010
My fiance has had this huge, solid oak unfinished entertainment center for 15 years, it's too big to use in my house any where so I wanted to sell it, but it's just been sitting there in the basement for years, is covered in dust and I don't want to use harsh cleansers to get it off that may ruin the wood, I tried just dry dusting it, but it's pretty caked, lol, any suggestions? Also, he bought it for about 0, how much should I ask for it? Besides the dust, it's in awesome condition, no nicks or marks...
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For unfinished wood, the best way to clean and get all the dirt, grime, fingerprints, etc off is to use a very fine sandpaper. You can get it at any hardware store – look for 400 grit. This is so fine that it won’t leave sanding marks on the furniture, but it will clear off all the dirt and oils. Check especially down at the bottom of the piece for scuffmarks from shoes, etc and get those off, and don’t forget to clean any wooden door or drawer pulls. Don’t be afraid to put a little muscle into it if you run into stubborn marks or dirt. 400 grit is superfine, it won’t hurt anything. Once you’re done sanding, you can just wipe the piece with a damp cloth to remove any leftover sanding dust. Voila. Beautiful and ready for sale.
If the dirt is kind of greasy and mucky, get to the hardware store and get some naphtha. That’s not a name brand, it’s a product, and it’s not expensive. Just ask for it if you can’t find it. You can wipe the wood with this and it won’t do any harm, but it will cut through grease, etc. You can even poor it on the really dirty parts (don’t go too crazy or you’ll just have puddles). Naphtha dries on it’s own – you don’t have to worry about drying it. Then you can sand as I said above.
In the places where you sand, the wood may look a different color. That’s because you’re sanding off some of the wood’s natural patina. In time, the color will come back, but if you’re worried about how that might look when you go to sell it, do a light sanding on the whole piece to make it uniform in color.
As for price, do remember that tv’s have changed dramatically in 15 years, and therefore so have entertainment storage pieces. Not knowing what style or configuration it is, it’s very hard to say what you should ask. If it’s made of solid wood, you should ask more, if it’s hardwood (oak, cherry, ash) as opposed to a softwood such as pine, even better. So give it some thought and determine it’s value as a usable piece of furniture with today’s technology, then price it. Good luck.
Try scraping off the caked on stuff then sandpaper. Be careful with the scraper. Don’t cross grain sand. Check out unfinished furniture store for cost. Can’t help you there…. sorry.