Phoenix Furniture
Rescued - Reimagined - Reborn
It’s a common enough scene: You’re at a garage sale, or your favorite thrift store, and you spot a furniture piece that makes your heart go pitter pat! You rush over, and WHAM! You get hit right in the face with that strong, unpleasant, musty smell! Oh no! Or maybe it’s that other boogeyman . . . cigarette smoke odor. What do you do? Do you walk away from this treasure, just because she’s a bit stinky? Heaven forbid!
My first experience with this dilemma was an odor issue I didn’t notice until after the piece was in my car on the way home. I had been so excited with my find that I forgot to do the sniff test. I know! Rookie mistake! But in the confines of my car, the smell of cigarette smoke was so overpowering I had to roll all of my windows down for the ride home. Then it was straight to my buddy Google to see if there was any hope. I was facing the potential heartbreak of re-donating her before I had the chance to bring her back to life. Predictably, Google offered many, many suggestions.
While every article was different, 2 remedies were on every list: a solution of white vinegar and water, or baking soda. HUZZAAH! Vinegar and water did the trick! Whew! And now I knew I didn’t have to leave smokey treasures behind!
After this experience, I began to wonder if vinegar and water was the only/best choice for de-stinking my treasures. And would the vinegar solution work on the other major odorizer: damp musty nastiness? I decided to do an experiment.
The Experiment
I found two of the stinkiest, musty night stands I have ever come across. I could smell them from a few feet away with the drawers closed. Open them and the stench could about knock you off your feet. Perfect subjects for my planned experiment! Best of all, they were identical and came from the same home, so no variables like different composition, size, living conditions, or drawers vs doors to potentially skew my results. Not only that, but the stinky factor made them quite affordable! 😉 Since vinegar and baking soda were on every list, I chose those as the test solutions.
Step One: Cleanliness matters. 🙂
Step one was to thoroughly clean both pieces inside, outside, and upside down – literally. That musty smell comes from mold and mildew growing in the wood. Eeew! Right? I use a product called Nature’s Miracle. It’s actually intended for pet stain cleanup. It cleans, disinfects, and removes any odors that come from the pet stains to prevent resoiling. Given that I don’t necessarily know the full history of a piece, better safe than sorry. As a former farm girl, I know that sometimes mice happen. And where they go . . . nobody wants that!
They smelled a little bit better, but that may well have just been the scent in my cleaner covering it some. They could still knock you down at 5 paces!
Note: It’s also especially important to thoroughly clean any piece that reeks of cigarette smoke. That yellow stuff coming off on your cleaning cloth? That’s nicotine. Not only is it icky, but you won’t get rid of the stink until all of that is gone, no matter what deodorizing method you use.
Step Two: Labels all around!
Careful labeling was important so I didn’t accidentally mix and match drawers. They ARE identical! I also removed the hardware.
Step Three: Soak them thoroughly.
Once again: inside, outside, & upside down. The vinegar and water was ¾ cup vinegar to 2 cups water. I applied the vinegar and water solution with a spray bottle. The baking soda was a bit more of a chore. Since I wasn’t sure it would dissolve thoroughly enough to be sprayed, I mixed the baking soda with warm water in a 10:1 ratio and used a rag to apply it everywhere. After each piece was soaked in my solution, I immediate dried it to prevent water damage. Wood and particle board are very absorbant!
Step Four: Walk away.
This is the hard part. Walk away and let the pieces dry. As they dry the odors continue to be affected by the solution applied. So I had to just go away and ignore them for several hours. Torture!
NOTE: Several websites say to put your pieces in the sun to dry after applying your solution. DON’T! Wood can warp very badly if it is wet and gets put in the sun! I had a piece (not in this experiment) that was almost ruined by warping because I did that. It took hours of work to repair the damage! Yes, many experts agree that sunlight can help get odors out of wood. But please make sure it is completely dry first!
And the Winner is . . .
After I let everything dry thoroughly, I came back to our contestants for the final sniff test. BOTH options passed with flying colors! The musty smell was completely gone in both pieces. BUT, I’m going to give a slight edge to vinegar & water & declare it the winner. Why? Despite equally impressive deodorizing results, the baking soda and water left a powdery residue behind that I will have to wash off before I can do anything else. Since the vinegar smell fades very quickly, I’m good to go with that little lady. When it comes to projects, anything that can save me time and effort is a winner in my book!
Random, potentially helpful deodorizing hints:
- Some particularly stinky treasures may require multiple treatments. I haven’t experienced this myself, but I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
- If, despite your best efforts, some odor remains, or if you don’t want to be bothered with re-treating if the first try just didn’t get the job done, unwaxed shellac and certain primers (check the can) will seal in the odors so they won’t leach out through your paint or varnish.
- Why not just go straight to unwaxed shellac or primer? For one thing, it adds to the price tag of a project, and as you may have noticed by now, I’m cheap! I much prefer $2.29 for a gallon of vinegar that will be used in a dozen or more projects vs. $8/can of shellac, that I may need 2 -4 of to hit every surface if I have a large item. Also, the shellac is a spray, which can get messy and is difficult to apply to interior surfaces, such as the inside of a dresser. And yes, it would have to be applied to EVERY surface inside and out to effectively seal in the odor. That’s going to be messy with primer as well. Shellac also has a slight yellow tint – not a problem if you’ll be painting over it, but perhaps a deal breaker if you are going to stain and varnish the wood.