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).