How to Fix Furniture with Mayo

Last Friday, we got a bigger dining room table. It’s from Pottery Barn, ya’ll. Remember my love affair with Pottery Barn?

Even though it isn’t new, it’s the only thing in my house from Pottery Barn (and probably always will be), Better yet, all my kids can fit around it with room for company (as long as that company doesn’t have personal space issues), so I kind of love it.

Two days after we hauled that baby into the dining room, I scorched the top. If you follow my Five in Tow Facbebook page, you already heard the confession. Basically, I plunked my red-hot cast-iron Dutch oven smack down on top of that thing, and even though I had hot pads underneath the pot, it didn’t matter.

When I cleared the table after dinner, I saw a huge, ugly white mark right in the middle of the table. I ruined my Pottery Barn table two days after taking possession of it!

This is why we can’t have nice stuff. I am not worthy.

I almost burst into tears right then and there. Then I remembered some old trick involving mayonnaise and wood. Really, that’s all I had. I couldn’t even remember what the mayo was supposed to help with but I grabbed the jar from the fridge and smeared some right on that horrific mark.

It disappeared.

I could not believe it. I can have nice things after all! I can!

In my distress about the table, I did not think to take a picture before smearing on the condiments, but I did post my success to Facebook. I went on there and told you all how to fix furniture with mayo.

That started an interesting question. Some of you had heard of the ol’ mayo trick but had not had such stellar results. You were sad because you could not fix your furniture with mayo.

That got me thinking. I had some ideas of why my table responded so well to the mayonnaise, and it had to do with heat. The spot on my table was still warm when I applied the mayo, and I wondered if that had anything to do with the amazing results.

I decided to do some experimenting.

CAN MAYO REALLY FIX FURNITURE?

It just so happens that I also ruined another piece of furniture a few years ago (see note above about not being able to have nice things). My mother-in-law gave me an antique dresser when we first got married. Technically, she loaned it to me, but I’ve got squatter’s rights on it now.

Besides, there’s the awkward fact that I made a huge watermark on the top of that very dresser because I didn’t realize the fern I had watered completely overflowed. Water pooled up under the pot and sat there grinning until I noticed it later that night.

By then, it was too late.

I didn’t know what to do so I’ve been hiding that awful spot under piles of clothing for the last two years. My husband thinks I’m a slob. Really, I just can’t have nice things (see note above).

Do you think she’d notice something is different about it? I mean, it has been a few years.

It seemed this piece of furniture was prime for a little..experimentation (my husband agrees, especially if experimentation is synonymous with burning). If anything screams, “You’ve got nothing to lose!” it’s this dresser.

First, I smeared mayonnaise all over the watermark and let it sit. I didn’t notice much, if any, difference. Some of the very faint marks looked a little better, but it was negligible.

It was time to test my hypothesis.

SO…I got out my hair dryer. Holy smokes. Check out what happened.

I put the hair-dryer on high, and half-an-hour later, it looked like this:

That’s a two-year-old, nasty watermark, and it almost disappeared! In case you forgot how horrific it looked before, here’s the side-by-side:

I noticed that the darker places were the peaks of the mayo. In other words, the places where the mayo was the thickest turned out the darkest.

So I went gangster with the mayo on that watermark.

Overkill, perhaps?

This time, I heated the wood before I applied the mayonnaise. Then, I smeared it on thick and hit it with more heat. I know you’re thinking, “I don’t have time to blow-dry a dresser.” Neither do I. So, I rigged up this high-tech automatic blow-drying device. Ta-da!

After three rounds, the dresser looks like this:

Now, it’s not perfect, especially since the water damage actually changed the texture of the top of the dresser. But it’s significantly better than it was earlier today. Given the level of damage on this particular piece of furniture, I’d say the mayonnaise did an amazing job! In fact, I could probably get away with putting just one bird on it.

MAYO FOR THE WIN!

I’m pretty convinced. Mayonnaise does an amazing job of restoring furniture damage due to heat, water, or (ahem) neglect.

What does this mean?

We can all have nice things! (Just keep the mayo close by).

Simply Homemade: Bells and Burlap Wreath

This post is part of the Simply Homemade series. To see the rest of the posts, start here.

Well, things have not been going as planned over at the Glover household. I don’t know about you, but Christmas is a study in flexibility, and I don’t mean seeing if you can still touch your toes after eating all that peppermint bark. Schedules get rearranged, simple errands take longer than usual, and sometimes, instead of doing the things you should, you opt for a long winter’s nap.

So. Today’s post was supposed to involve fabric, scissors, and the Oh-So-Scary sewing machine. It doesn’t. My plans were derailed because someone forgot to take pictures of the final result of the sewing project and didn’t realize it until the dark of night when it was too late to do anything about it.

Enter the Backup Plan. Instead of doing a project involving minimal sewing skills, we’re doing to do a project involving minimal gluing skills. Yippee! Here’s a sneak peak:

Bells and Burlap Wreath

Okay, that wasn’t really a sneak peak. That was more like the reveal. But it’s Christmas, and aren’t we all tired of waiting for the good stuff?

Now you’ll just have to stick with me while I back this train up and tell you all about my Bells and Burlap Wreath after you’ve already seen it.

Whilst walking around my favorite charity the other day (ahem, Hobby Lobby), I spotted these fabulous burlap canvases on sale. I snagged one in a lovely shade of 12×12.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it until we walked past a whole herd of jingle bells, also on sale. Now, I’ve always wanted to make a jingle bell wreath but I’ve never done it. I said to myself, “What could be easier than making a jingle bell wreath on burlap?” Practically nothing!

We hauled it home and got started. This is what we did:

Step 1: Make a Circle

Find a plate or a bowl to use as a guide to draw a circle on the burlap. Do not center it. Leave more space at the top of the canvas than the bottom because you will be adding a bow later and you don’t want it looking weird.

Step 2: Add Jingle Bells

I bought a package of 75 bells for this project (and hoped it would be enough). You could use more, but I wouldn’t use any less. I was barely squeaking by with the bells I had but I didn’t want to go back to Hobby Lobby because I swear, it costs me $50 just to walk in the door.

Using a hot glue gun, glue the jingle bells to the burlap. Place them together side-by-side on the circle you drew. Then, create an inner circle but this time, space the bells a bit apart so they don’t look too planned or perfect. Wreaths should be random!

Kya, my seven-year-old daughter, put the bells on the burlap and you can see they got a little bunchy at the bottom, but it doesn’t matter. After you create an inner circle, randomly glue a few bells on top of the bottom two rows. Adding the extra layer of bells makes everything even out. See?

Step 3: Add a Bow

Make a bow with some nice wide ribbon and secure it to the burlap with a bit of glue. It helps to tack down the dangling parts of the bow too so it all stays where it should.

Also, I should have ironed it. Oops.

Now, you could be done at this point. I thought I was until I asked my husband what he thought of my project and he did that thing that husbands do where their eyes glaze over and they say, “Ummm…”

Apparently, it needed a little something-something more. So…

Step 4: Embellish

If you look back to the first picture in this post, you’ll see that I added “stuff.” But wait–don’t scroll up. Here it is again:

Jeff thought my Bells and Burlap wreath needed a little green. He also thought there was too much space in the middle. I could have added another layer of bells, but like I said before, there was the whole problem of entering Hobby Lobby for “one thing” and coming out $50 poorer.

Instead, I decided to use what I had on hand (what a concept). I added a cardboard gift tag with the word “Noel” (because I like that word) and some smaller bells on ribbon. There’s also a sprig of green, just for my guy.

He said it was an improvement so I kissed him.

Step 5: Give (or Keep) Your Bells and Burlap Wreath

You could give your project away. That’s the whole point of this series, right? Or, you could realize that the Bells and Burlap Wreath is the perfect addition to that shelf you have in the stairway.

Ahem.

Looks like I might have to go back to Hobby Lobby after all.

P.S. Save yourself the trouble and make two from the get-go.

Save

Simply Homemade: Inverted Christmas Tree

*Another Simply Homemade post! To see the other ideas, start here.

I am a little nervous about this post.

I’m just not sure you all are going to be able to stick with me when I show you my crazy project. I should trust you by now–after all, you’re still here even after I hung a metal mattress spring on the wall and called it art.

But I may have crossed the line this time.

It all started years ago when a woman at our church hung a full-sized, decorated Christmas tree upside down from the rafters in the foyer of our sanctuary. It was all lit up and massive, and when I walked into church the first Sunday after she did it, I gasped because I had never seen anything like it before. It was a Christmas tree chandelier!

That tree caused no small disturbance in our small community. I mean, an upside down Christmas tree? What does that even mean? It could be sacrilegious and since that was before the Internet was really a thing, no one could Google it so no one knew for sure.

Some people liked it and some people hated it and practically everyone agreed that the board should have been notified before a Christmas tree was hung upside down in church.

Personally, I couldn’t wait to grow up and make one of my own.

So this year, I did.

Inverted Christmas tree and mattress art

Now, before you disown me, let me say that we have since arrived in the modern age so I Googled “What does an upside-down Christmas tree mean?” before I actually hung one from the ceiling. To my relief, Google assured me that an upside-down Christmas tree is no more irreligious than a regular Christmas tree. So that’s good. I think.

Also, you will notice that my inverted Christmas tree is ombre. I’m probably about three years too late for the ombre trend, but such is my life. For instance, I have finally made my peace with chevron and I’m pretty sure that trend is over too.

Anyway, I thought the shape of an upside-down Christmas tree lent itself to a variegated color scheme, so I went for it, trend or no trend.

Is ombre over?

Also, I had the little problem of the color scheme in our rental house. I had to pick colors that wouldn’t clash with the mustard-on-terra-cotta look we have going on. So, that’s not hard.

I could have gone with plain gold or silver ornaments, but I wanted something with more impact. So, I decided to start out with rich chocolate ornaments, fade to deep crimson, then copper, gold, and finally, silver.

Anyone want to talk to my landlord about those walls?

You could do an ombre tree in any colors your husband won’t divorce you over. I think deep purple fading to silver would be fantastic (except it wouldn’t look good next to mustard-fading-to-ketchup walls). I was tempted to go with various shades of green, but since I already had quite a few gold, silver, and burgundy ornaments in my stash, I decided to spend a little less on “charitable giving” to Hobby Lobby this year and use what I had.

If you’re still reading this post, you might want to make an inverted Christmas tree yourself. Or, perhaps, you wonder how I convinced my husband that Hobby Lobby is a home for disenfranchised children and all those credit card charges are really donations to charity.

It’s simple (the tree, that is). This is what you’ll need:

An artificial tree (mine is 3′)

Lights!

Ornaments! Go ombre or go home! Just kidding. You can decorate however you like. I’m not a hater. Just make sure you have a LOT of ornaments (see below).

Ribbons!

A ceiling hook. I used two Monkey Hooks because they hold a ton of weight.

Green floral wire

Ombre inverted Christmas tree at night

How to Make an Inverted Christmas Tree

(Ombre Optional)

1) Discard the flimsy little legs that come with your tree and make sure that the trunk has no moving parts that might come loose when you flip the tree upside down. If it does, toss those too. You want a solid trunk, nothing more.

2) Wrap floral wire around the trunk to create a loop by which to hook the tree from your ceiling.

3) Wrap lights and ribbon around your tree. Wrap the ribbon all the way up the trunk to the ceiling to cover the hook so it looks like the trunk is going right into your beautiful popcorn ceiling (see below for a flashback to the ceilings of yesteryear).

4) Now you can start adding ornaments. You’ll need a lot. I mean, somewhere between a bazillion and a gazillion. You might think you have enough when you start this project, but you are wrong. Then you will go to the store to buy some more, but you will be wrong again. Just get them all. All the ornaments you can find.

Fortunately, you can pick up ornaments on the cheap at thrift stores, garage sales, or the Hobby Lobby Home for Disenfranchised Children (wink, wink). Place a few special ornaments in strategic places and they will “hide” the cheaper ornaments.

Wire the ornaments directly to the branches so they won’t fall off. If you secure them well enough, you may be able to store them on the tree when the season is over.

5) Stand back and admire your work! Or, if you’re insecure, stand back and wonder if an inverted Christmas tree is just plain weird.

An inverted Christmas tree and a quiet place to write

I happen to like the way it looks over the little freebie desk I decoupaged. I would even go so far as to suggest that this would be a great project to make for someone who can’t have a Christmas tree because of pets or small children, or for the couple that’s just starting out.

Or maybe it makes the perfect place to sit and spend a silent night. And couldn’t we all use one of those?

*Tomorrow’s Simply Homemade project is not upside-down at all. But it does involve duct tape. In other words, it’s one for the guys.

Save

« Previous Page