Taking the Plunge with Color Fifteen designers give tips and tricks for updating your old furniture to look like new. All it takes is a coat of paint! White ConsoleWhite ConsoleSmall elements add drama to a room. Ron Woodson and Jaime Rummerfield painted this foyer wall a serene sage green to highlight the lovely off-white Sunset mirror and an Asian-inspired console. For an extra touch of glamour, a vintage parlor chair was added. Pictured, Sherwin-Williams's Hazel 6471. Super White and Little AngelSuper White and Little Angel"Dorothy Draper had no qualms about painting a 17th-century chair white — always a white white, never a creamy white. Her attitude was: I'll make antiques work for me. I'd paint a big armoire white, with yellow trim, and display blue-and-white porcelain against the yellow side." -Carleton Varney Pictured, Super White Interior Room (top) and Little Angel 318 (bottom) both by Benjamin Moore. Revealed: How the Color of Your Room Affects Your Mood
These 12 Color Trends Are Dominating 2017 15 Rooms That Prove Black Shiplap Is the New White Shiplap 6 Ways to Decorate With Pantone's Color of the Year Chic Interiors That Prove Pink Is the Hottest Color in London Mushroom Is the Color Taking Over Pinterest and Homes in 2017 Make a Statement With This Season's Hottest Jewel Colors You Should Always Paint Your Home Beige Pantone's 2017 Color of the Year Is the World's Brightest Neutral 5 Reasons Why You Need More Yellow in Your Home Unless you live in a museum, your furniture takes a lot of hits. Wet glasses leave behind white rings. Daily use wears away the finish on the edges of tables and chairs. And then there are all the little scratches, dents, and divots that mysteriously appear on wood surfaces. This kind of superficial damage can be fixed quickly and easily without harming your furniture or your wallet. (If you have a fine piece of antique furniture, you may want to leave repair to a professional restorer.)
The easy repair techniques on the following pages will work on any clear finish—lacquer, varnish, polyurethane, or shellac. You'll find the few materials you'll need, such as denatured alcohol, wax sticks, and touch-up markers, in the paint and finishes aisle at most home-improvement stores. Look for scratch-cover polish in the cleaning-supplies section. Before tackling any repairs, clean the furniture thoroughly with a solution of dishwashing liquid or Murphy Oil Soap and water to remove all wax, grease, oil, or polish. Once you've cleaned the piece, make repairs in this order: white water rings first, followed by minor surface scratches, deep scratches, and then dings and nicks. After that, all you need do to keep a finish looking its best is to dust with a damp cloth, wipe up spills as soon as possible, and occasionally clean off any grease and dirt with mild dishwashing soap and water. Shown: To conceal the many small scratches marring this tabletop, finish repair expert Michael Dresdner simply rubs on a coat of scratch cover, a pigmented furniture polish.
Applied with a clean rag, just like regular furniture polish, a single dose is enough to make most damage disappear. White rings, caused when water vapor penetrates into a finish, can be removed by wiping them gently with a cloth barely dampened with denatured alcohol. (Black rings indicate damaged wood and require complete removal of the surrounding finish before any repair can be attempted.) Too much alcohol can dull the finish. If that happens, restore a satin sheen by rubbing with extra-fine 0000 steel wool and paste wax. To bring back a gloss finish, use auto polishing compound applied with a rag. To make the repair blend in, go over the damaged area and the entire adjacent surface. Where a clear finish is chipped but the underlying color is intact, fill the ding with a few drops of clear nail polish. After the polish dries, sand flush with 600-grit sandpaper. To restore the sheen on satin finishes, rub with 0000 steel wool and paste wax; for gloss finishes, use auto polishing compound and a rag.
Large Scratches and Worn Edges Felt-tip touch-up markers come in a variety of wood tones to match common furniture finishes. Use them to color large scratches or edges where the stain has worn away. Apply only to damaged areas, and wipe immediately if any gets on the neighboring finish. Apply a coat of paste wax over the repair and the entire adjacent surface to impart an even sheen. Gouges, Nicks, and Dings: Step 1 A gouge sometimes has a slightly raised burr around its perimeter. Level it by sanding lightly with 600-grit paper. Gouges, Nicks, and Dings: Step 2 Next, choose a wax stick that closely matches the finish, or blend two or more sticks together (in your hand or in the gouge) to get just the right color. Rub the stick over the gouge until it's slightly overfilled with wax. Gouges, Nicks, and Dings: Step 3 Scrape off the excess wax with the edge of a credit card. The wax should just fill the gouge; rub off any wax on the surrounding surface with a piece of a brown paper bag wrapped around a flat block.