DIY: fix scratches in wood furniture

A few weeks ago I read this post at Lily & Thistle about a DIY for fixing scratched furniture. It seemed too good to be true! She claimed that she used a mixture of 1/4 cup vinegar and 3/4 cup olive oil and magically got rid of the scratches in a piece of thrift store furniture.

I knew I was going to try it, though! See, I have this table:

my preciousssss...

My husband hates it, but I just adore it! I have a small large obsession for vintage modern furniture, and this is one of my favorite pieces I've collected (He calls them my "ugly grandpa furniture." What does he know about style? Bah!). But in this case, he's kind of right. As much as I love it, it's in really bad shape on the top. Check it out:

I've tried furniture polish and orange oil, and nothing really makes it look much better. It was sitting forlornly in our garage waiting for me to decide if it was worth keeping, so I figured I'd give this magical trick a try as a last ditch effort.

I mixed about 1/2 cup vinegar with 1/2 cup of olive oil, because I didn't have enough Olive Oil and it still worked! Check it out:

I took a kitchen rag and just dipped it in and rubbed it on. I kept going until I had gone over the whole table and used almost all of the mixture. I was shocked! It really worked! The scratches were fixed! My "grandpa table" now looks like this:

Let's just do a little side by side comparison, shall we? I think this deserves it's own montage. Try and imagine Rocky music in your head for me as we watch the transformation:

Yikes! That is a crazy difference! Not only does it look better but my table is now silky smooth and clean. Um, yeah, I'd say it worked! The best part (unless you're my husband) is that now my precious table is a totally usable piece of furniture again, and has been restored to it's rightful place in our entry way hall:

I forsee this table and I having a long and happy life together now, sorry Honey!

I think I can pretty obviously say that I recommend it as a successful scratch fix. Let me know how this works for you! If you're looking for more of our home projects, you can find there on our For the Home page here.

~Jessica