Caring for Your Antiques
- July 12, 2010
- by: Wade Cook
- Antiques
Caring for Your Antiques and Collectibles:
Taking Care of Antique Furniture
by Wade Cook
You’ve spent time and money acquiring the wonderful antiques and collectibles in your home. How do you care for them? Each month our own Wade Cook provides a host of advice on keeping everything from your antique furniture to your kitchen collectibles, safe and sound.
1. Let’s get this first one right out of the way. This is something I have been hearing about – and being horrified by -recently. Do not EVER use cooking oil from your kitchen on your furniture. And for heavens sake, don’t use – as some people have suggested- mayonnaise as furniture polish. There are also those who recommend using a mixture of cooking oil and lemon juice or vinegar on your antique finishes. Do NOT do any of these.
Let’s look at these one at a time. Oils with a shelf life like olive or safflower oil will go rancid. They can also evaporate and become sticky over time. Neither do you want on the finish of your antique! Mayonnaise contains not only oil, but eggs, too. Would you rub a fried egg on your furniture? Me neither. As for using vinegar or lemon juice; these two are both used by furniture refinishers as a darkening agent for wood. All of the above are very bad ideas.
Yes, those hyper-commercial furniture polishes in the grocery store make your furniture look pretty and shiny, but many can, as they age, dry into a sticky coating that can act like glue for the dust flying around in the air. The dust can stick to the finish and in the long run, dull it. The very best protection for fine furniture is wax – a thin coat of good quality wax, applied every four to six months.
Lastly, if you don’t know what to use for polish on your fine furniture, or if your just aren’t sure, ask a specialist like an antiques dealer or furniture refinisher. There are some excellent antiques companies who advertise with North Georgia Living. Check them out in our magazine or advertisers list, right on this site.
Use this rule of thumb, though; certainly don’t use anything on your furniture that you need to keep in your refrigerator!
2. Do not expose fine wooden furniture to ultraviolet light, that is, sunlight. Sunlight can bleach out the wood on your fine pieces, even through your windows. Protect your wooden furniture – and its finishes –from direct sunlight. Curtains, shades, blinds or a special film to coat windows can all protect your furniture’s wood. Of course since sunlight can also cause clear finishes to turn opaque, you should protect your fine furniture from the sunlight to preserve its finish as well.
3. Don’t place your fine wooden furniture in front of HVAC vents or close to stoves, radiators or fireplaces. Heat can separate the glue from veneers or loosen inlays. Even worse, they can loosen the glue joints holding your piece together.
4. Wax your furniture properly using, preferably, a piece of cheesecloth or other soft cloth. Apply the wax in a thin layer, in the same direction as the grain of the wood, and then gently buff it to a shine.
5. Avoid using feather dusters; they can actually cause minute scratches on wood at times. If you have furniture that is veneered or has inlay, avoid using dust rags that are unbound. By that I mean, do not use a rag that may have strings hanging from it. These can catch and pull off veneers and inlay.
6. Use care in general in your treatment of antiques. I remember a lovely set of federal dining chairs we once owned. A friend leaned back in one of them and in an instant, reduced it to splinters. Don’t rock back in antique chairs. (And don’t let your friends, either!) Don’t write heavily on the surface of tables or desk tops, particularly with ball point pens. Don’t open drawers that have two pulls, using one of them. Most importantly, when you are moving a large piece of antique furniture, never drag it. If you move it, empty out the drawers or clear the shelves, remove them and then move it. Pick up whatever piece you are moving by its strongest points. For a chair, the seat bottom, for a table, underneath the apron. This may sound like extra work, but you will be glad you were careful in the long run. Some of the worst – and most common –damage to larger antique furniture comes from improperly moving it.
More next month!
Want to ask Wade a question about caring for your antiques or collectibles? Email him right here!
