Quick Fix

Yesterday my husband and I went up to the new/old house to get some work done. I couldn't do what I originally intended to do because I found some spots in the plaster that needed fixing before they could be washed or painted but I did wash the walls that were clear of defects. One benefit of doing my own painting is becoming more intimately familiar with my new house. Most people wouldn't think of that as a good thing but when you buy old houses (and compared to my current space this house is just a teenager--1677 vs 1901), you learn that all knowledge is good even if the news is bad.

Anyway, we had left our three cats and one dog at home alone as we are wont to do. They all get along well and as anyone who has pets knows, sleep is the primary function of a cat or a dog. But when we got back to the house I found that some pet (certainly a cat but with three it's hard to say which) had knocked over a large vase of dahlias on our dining room table spilling water over one side of the table. I have no way of knowing when in the 2.5 hours we were gone the spill occurred, but hoping that it was closer to my return than my departure I jumped right in to what I had fortuitously looked up several months ago--how to repair water marks on furniture.

I used to give team parties for my two swim teams and had had to do some fixes on furniture finishes because of people who were apparently raised in a barn. I mean who doesn't know how to use a coaster when they are scattered everywhere? But this was still standing water all on one side of the table. I had read an article that recommended using a hot iron to extract the water. Well, son of a gun, it works. There were multiple places on the table (solid cherry wood not veneer) that had water on them and there were already indications that the water had begun to settle in to the wood when I wiped it dry. So I ran up two flights of stairs to my quilting studio and grabbed my iron and then grabbed a terry cloth towel.

I had never used this particular fix before but what is recommended is that you lay the towel over the area with the water spot(s), place a hot iron on the towel over the spot, hold for 30 seconds, lift the towel, wipe, and repeat. I was astonished. I had wiped the table dry but when I lifted the towel after holding the iron on the spot(s) there was water again on the table. So the hot iron was bringing the water out of the wood to the surface where it could be wiped off. I spent about twenty minutes moving the iron from place to place and checking each time. At the end of the twenty minutes, there were no watermarks, no visible darkening of the wood, nothing.

Since I made my dining room table myself, I was particularly interested in keeping it in reasonable shape. I don't mean in perfect museum quality shape, but we do take care not to place wet glasses on the wood. Now we know for sure to not leave the cats with a vase of water either, even if we don't think they have the strength to knock over that heavy vase.