How to Clean and Rejuvenate Wood Casings and Trim
Published On: June 23, 2016 Posted by: Jeremy Peterson
We live in a 108 year old home and have been working steadily on improving and restoring our home to its former splendor. We have recently repainted much of our home in historic colors and one of the last things we have left to do is restore the wood casings and baseboards.
Until now, it has been a bit of a mystery to us on how to bring the trim work back to life. Our casings are made of Douglas fir and the wood is rather soft. We have been leery of applying polyurethane finishes or doing something that would rob them of their original character. So, they have sat waiting for our attention for some time.
Recently though, we had an epiphany. Some research online and some trial and error with some test pieces of wood seems to have provided a way forward.
First, we had to get our casings ready for work by cleaning. Murphy’s Oil Soap proved to be a very effective and safe cleaner for our woodwork. The next step involved stripping the casings of sloppy paint work that was needlessly splashed on the casings by a previous owner.
In this case, Goof Off proved to be an effective tool. However, it did require a lot of tedious scrubbing with rags and “0000” steel wool. The hard work paid off though. We were pleased with the results.
When doing this, make sure you wear rubber gloves. Trust me when I say that nitrite gloves will begin to melt when using this kind of solvent.
After removing the paint from the casings, our next chore was to polish them up. Our woodwork had experienced some significant trauma over the years since our home was at one time a boarding house.
The soft wood had taken a beating from pets, water damage, reckless inhabitants, and time.
We chose to use Watco’s awesome Rejuvenating Oil to bring the casings back to life.
As you can see, the transformation was remarkable. We are still working on solutions to some of the remaining imperfections (like the chalking on the door) but overall we were very impressed with how this product worked. If you are looking to bring your wood casings back to life, try these products and see if they work magic for you like they did for us. Happy Restoring!
