If you are one of those traditional believers, who believe that refinishing of furniture requires stripping, well it is time that you test and give a second thought to your belief. No, it does not require you to buy a new furniture, you can refinish your old leather furniture without going through the hassle of stripping it.
Restoration of Original Look with Material Spirits
The refinishing of the furniture starts with cleaning it; you need to wipe the old furniture with the mineral spirit. The spirit saturates the finish temporarily to reveal the bare look of the furniture, without polish only with a coat of wipe-on. It depends how your furniture reacts to the mineral finish, if it looks decent or above average than you can clean the surface and apply oil based wipe on. Now the process of refinishing exceeds only when the furniture looks bad or not up to the mark. If the furniture looks bad with the material spirit, other methods are to be considered.
Cleaning the Furniture
As much as it sounds dirty, it is one of those methods that can restore back the original look of the furniture. It is not easy to clean the decade old mess on the furniture with simple soap and water. However, once cleaned, the old rugged furniture restores its lost beauty. Add a teaspoon of dishwashing liquid in the cup filled with water, dip a sponge in the solution and scrub the surface of the furniture gently. Once you are done with the scrubbing, rinse the soapy surface with a wrung out sponge and water.
Fixing up Cracks and Nail Holes
Cracks and nail holes are very common with the old furniture, the easiest way to get rid of these cracks and holes is to restore it with wax. You will find a wax pencil or wax repair sticks at your home, and if you do not have it , buy a small wax stick you will find them in home centers or paint stores in NYC.
All you need to do is rub the stick over the defect, or you can break it and warm the chunks of wax in your hand. Use your judgement to sense if it is warm enough to take a shape. Take that warm wax and fill it in the crack and holes in the old furniture, and press it in the cracks with a soft tool. The final result will be crack-less furniture in your home.
Cleaning of Splatters of Paint
Splatters of paint are easy to remove without damaging the finish of the furniture. You can scrub the area where the pain is splattered if scrubbing doesn’t work there is another method you can get that paint splatter out. You need a razor blade for this, firstly wrap a masking tape around the blades end to give it a curvy shape.
Hold the blade perpendicular so that you can use it to scrape of the paint splatter from the furniture. While scrapping you need not worry about the edge of the razor accidentally scraping off the furniture, the tape secures it from touching the surface. Slowly use the blade to scrape the paint splatters from the furniture.
All that is left now to complete the whole restoration process is painting a coat of wipe-on finish. Let the wipe-on finish dry overnight. Once the finish on the old furniture is all dried, your restoration and refinishing is complete.