Your furniture is a huge investment! So is your car and your house. So if you put a lot of work into your car or your house, like getting oil changes or putting in new floors, why would you not do the same with your furniture? Your furniture gets used a lot and you can help maintain its value by following these ideas.
Keep your furniture clean. If it's cloth furniture, you should vacuum it regularly. If it is leather furniture, you should wipe it down and use leather treatment regularly. And if it's made of wood, you need to keep it polished. But what if it has already taken a beating? What can you do then?
If you have wooden furniture you have a few options. Painting is one idea. In fact, two dressers from different manufacturers can be made to look like they are part of a set with a paint job and a new set of handles!
If you do not want to paint your furniture you still have other options. If it has been badly abused, you can sand off the finish, sand out the nicks and scratches, and then varnish it. Or, if it is not badly scratched, you can use children's crayons in a color that matches the wood (like light brown) and color in the scratch. Scratch filler is available at hardware stores but children's crayons can work just as well.
Another way to revive your tired furniture, like couches and chairs, is to get them re-upholstered. After all, you have probably painted your living room a couple times, so having furniture that matches again will make your room look that much better. Instead of buying brand new furniture, just get your furniture re-upholstered.
And yet another way to revive tired looking furniture is to simply move your room around or switch the rooms that your furniture are in. Take the armchair that has been in your living room since you bought the house and move it to the bedroom. Take the unused chair in the spare room and move it by the front door. Simple changes like this will help you cycle your furniture from heavy use areas to light use areas, which will help maintain their life, and will help you enjoy them as if they were new.
This article was posted on October 11, 2005
