There is nothing worse than coming home after a hard day of work and seeing your cat sitting beside your scratched leather/wooden sofa or chair. Furniture often requires a professional to repair especially if the scratches are severe and deep. You certainly wouldn’t want to spend on professional help for minor scratches- so here I am with some tricks to remove scratches from furniture effectively on your own:
PETROLEUM JELLY
Smear petroleum jelly over a scratch and leave it overnight. It might help the surrounding wood to plump up and fill in the scratch. Wipe away in the morning and polish the surface.
OLIVE OIL+VINEGAR
Mix about ½ cup olive oil with ½ cup vinegar. Give it a good mix and dip a washcloth in it. Buff your entire wooden furniture with this for 5-10 minutes. You will be shocked with the results! You may also use canola oil instead of olive oil.
CAR POLISH
On a French-polished tabletop, try removing the scratch with car polish. Take care to polish lightly so that you don’t rub away the rest of the finish.
PURE LANOLIN CREAM
Scratches on leather sofa can be tricky to get rid of. Run a soft cloth in pure lanolin cream. Then rub the cloth perpendicular to the cut in a motion that would smooth the leather down. After the leather is flat again, a few more applications of lanolin may be required. But be careful with this method, as it may darken the colour of the leather. If the leather is cut all the way though, you would need a leather repair kit.
COFFEE GROUNDS
To darken a light-coloured scratch on the wood, place coffee grounds on end of Q-tip and lightly dab at the scratch. Apply lightly at first and then wait for few hours before applying more.
TEA
Do not use herbal or green tea; the black tea produces the colour you want to match the wood. Place the tea bag in a cup and pour 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of hot water over it. Let it steep for at least 2 minutes. If your wood is very dark, use a black tea bag that has been steeped for at least 3 minutes. The longer the bag is steeped, the darker the colour. Dip a cotton swab into the tea and dab it on the scratch. Use a paper towel to immediately wipe away any tea that gets on the surrounding wood so that it doesn’t get stained.
CRAYON WAX
If the scratch is deeper, raid your children’s wax crayon set. Grate part of a crayon into a small bowl; rest the bowl in a pan of boiling water to melt the wax, then drip the wax into the gouge, smoothing it with a flat knife. You can mix a colour to match your wood by adding shavings from crayons of several colours.
DISGUISE THE SCRATCH
Hide the scratch by rubbing it with a little shoe polish of a matching colour. Alternatively, try an eyebrow pencil- soft, oil-based, and brown coloured, deal for camouflaging anything from small surface scratches to deeper ones.
ADDITIONAL TIPS:
- Treat cracked wood with a little mayonnaise for two to three days. Oils in the mayo will help swell the wood and fill the crack.
- Where a clear finish is chipped but the underlying colour is intact, fill the ding with a few drops of clear nail polish. After the polish dries, sand flush with 600-grit sandpaper.
- Light surface scratches can sometimes be eliminated by rubbing them with a paste comprised of mineral oil and pumice. This method works best if the paste is gently rubbed into the scratch with a piece of extra-fine-grade steel wool.
- Properly maintaining leather furniture keeps it supple and durable, preventing scratches from occurring in the first place. Keep the furniture out of direct sunlight and well away from any direct heat sources, such as radiators and vents. Excess light and heat dry out the leather, causing it to crack and making it more prone to scratching.