Clean Mold on Furniture
Ever had a piece of furniture you really liked but is too damaged to put out? Try repairing it by replacing its legs, or giving it a fresh coat of paint. That way, you get to salvage it and you will have a piece of new furniture to show off.
Mold is a serious threat to your furniture that is made of wood and you must always do regular checking of the furniture to make sure that it is free of mold before it starts to deteriorate and be ruined for good. Wood furniture is especially prone to mold if you do not adhere to proper care in preventing its growth. The best remedy is definitely the preventive measures, for example, by eliminating dampness and regularly cleaning your furniture. You should also try to reduce dampness inside your house. Below are some of the steps to enable you to clean the mold that you found on your wood furniture.
What you need:
- Rubber gloves
- Chlorine bleach
- Water
- Wood cleaner
- Washcloths
Method:
- The first thing that you need to do is to start removing as much loose mold as you can from the furniture by using a soft brush vacuum cleaner attachment. You can also use a hand-held broom in order to brush away any of the loose mold from your furniture.
- The next step is to soak your washcloth into a solution mixed with 3 parts of water along with 1 part of mild detergent. After that, you must wring the solution until it is dry thoroughly before you start wiping the furniture\’s surface for removing the mold.
- Start wiping on the infected furniture covering a small area at a time and then, to follow-up with another washcloth that you have dipped into plain water. Then, use a clean or dry cloth so that you can dry-off the wet surface of your furniture.
- Make sure that the area cleaned is completely dry before you decide to proceed with another infected area.
- You can also use a furniture cleaner to wipe your furniture whenever you notice there is white, greasy, film on the furniture. It is also known as a wax buildup and should always be cleaned because if it is not cleaned, the mold spores will reappear. Then, you can follow-up with a thin layer of paste wax because the furniture has been stripped off its own protective wax cover.
- If possible, you may need to leave the cleaned furniture out in the sunlight for a few hours. This method enables the sunlight to continue the purpose of oxidation and helps to eliminate the source mold or mildew.
- Other option that you can use for cleaning wood furniture is by scrubbing them with a mild alkali-like washing soda or trisodium phosphate that you can mix with at least 8 to 10 tablespoons and combine with a gallon of water. You could also use disinfectants such as a quaternary disinfectant or pentachlorophenate which can be purchased from your local grocery stores or from hardware stores.
- You also have to make sure that the furniture or the affected areas are rinsed with clear water and should allow it to dry thoroughly before you start applying a mildew-resistant paint.
Additional Reading:
http://www.oldhousejournal.com/how_to_get_rid_of_mold/magazine/1591
http://ezinearticles.com/?Safeguard-Your-Antique-Wooden-Furniture-from-Molds&id=632230
http://www.howtocleanstuff.net/outdoors/how-to-remove-mildew-from-wood/
http://www.ehow.com/how_6012315_remove-mold-antique-wood.html
http://www.fcs.uga.edu/pubs/current/C767.html
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/allansiew/64044093/
