Dining Room Table- Watermark removal

We bought our dining room table back when we first bought our old house.
It was a great deal- something like $350 for the table (with three leaves), the hutch, the buffet, and two chairs.

In the 11 years since, it's gotten a lot of use...
& has some scars to prove it!

There are a couple of marks from water or heat (I have a table pad on it most of the time, but somehow it still happened!)

I'd tried several methods to remove them... mayo, lemon oil, etc.  None of them worked for me.

A few months ago, I read this post on Young House Love about buffing a piece of furniture with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

It sounded like a great idea, and I figured it was worth a shot, with nothing to lose since I've been keeping the table under a tablecloth.


Here's the step-by-step:

Looking better after the Magic Eraser!

1- using a slightly damp Magic Eraser, scrub the table top.

I made sure to go in the direction of the wood grain, just in case the Eraser left small scratches (happily, it didn't!)

I had to use a bit of pressure on the white water marks, but they did come up!

The water marks were removed, & the scratches were minimized.  However, there was a film left behind, so I took a damp rag and wiped it down.




2- Old English wood stain... I use this a LOT- on the wood banister, my bedroom furniture, plus any other antique furniture I pick up at yardsales!

Using an old rag (or a paper towel) pour on & rub into the wood.  This stain fills in scratches & they pretty much disappear from view!

Note that there are 2 colors of the Old English stain.  Even though this wood is a medium tone, I used the darker stain.  I think you'd use the light for oak.



3- The table was looking really good now, but after letting it sit for a while (so any residual stain would dry) the wood itself seemed a bit dry.

Which leads me to Scott's Liquid Gold...
This stuff is great- It really brings the wood back to life!
It's similar to Pledge or other furniture polishes, but adds so much more moisture to the wood.


Here's the finished table...

Reverse shot

Now I need to go back and use the Old English on the table legs & chairs!

If you look in the background of that last photo, you can see a box in the background, on the floor of the family room- more on that delivery here!

Close up of the stain & polish I used.