I have now lived through a nine-month rehab of our 1891-crate-of-a-house. EVERYTHING (and I do mean everything) is now covered with nasty old horsehair plaster dust, sanded drywall dust, sawdust, and {yes} white cat hair. :eek:
I have some fine antiques from the 1750’s on through the 1890’s or so. What’s the safest way to remove this dust and re-polish the old, old wood?
Thanks for your advice & commiseration.
Apologies if anything comes out weird, apparently I clean in Spanish.
To avoid creating trails and leaving marks when there is any materials that can be scratchy, I first remove as much as possible using a wet cloth or kitchen paper. It may be wet with water or, if the underlying material is something organic and looks kind of dry, I may use milk or body milk (any brand that’s liquid, good and not silly expensive: Nivea or Eucerin meet the requirements here). I do not move it about, but tap the dust with it trying to grab the biggest pieces and letting the wetness handle the smallest ones.
Once that is done, a specific cleaning product which will depend on what the object is made of: O’Cedar for wood (I know I saw similar things in the US), body milk for leather or for very dry wood (does wonders), Aladdin for metals (probably not available in the US but there have to be similar products, the parent company is Henkel).
Did you chose your title purposely? I really thought you were going back to doing inhalants after you personally had been through a drug addiction rehabilitation program.
If you didn’t intend that double meaning, it was an interesting accident, if you meant it that way…it was pure poetry.:eek:
Moderator Note
I have edited the thread title as it could be taken to have a very different meaning than the one intended.
I’m assuming you are vacuuming as a first step?
No good advice on the furniture, but we hired a good duct cleaning after our remodel. They pulled out an astounding amount of crap.
I would vacuum first, then go over it with a microfiber cloth. Microfiber is amazingly effective in removing dust. I would try that before using any liquid on old wood.
Google “remove plaster dust from wood” for more ideas.
Duct cleaning is almost always unnecessary (and often a scam). Unless your furnace was running during the renovation there shouldn’t be any renovation dust in the ducts.
–Mark
Amazon sells all manner of microfiber and lambswool dusters that do a great job of picking up the dust rather than just spreading it around. Shake it out frequently outside the house. I agree about not using household cleaners or waxes on antiques.
I’ve been through this. At one point, I actually had to disassemble my TV and vacuum out the plaster dust. Lots o’ fun. My only bright side was that my furniture is only antique in the “never got around to replacing the stuff I had in grad school” sense. So just vacuuming and wiping it down with water and various dusting products more or less worked. For actual (valuable) antiques – I’d talk with a professional, especially if you don’t know what the finish is.
Do any of your friends have a Rainbow vacuum cleaner? At the very least, you’ll want a vac with a good HEPA filter so you don’t just redistribute dust.
Try to avoid doing anything that just moves the dust around on surfaces - the plaster dust is fairly abrasive, so dry-dusting with a towel could leave polished surfaces (pianos, lacquered things, etc) with a haze of fine scratches.
Be careful with dry paper towels as they are surprisingly scratchy to fine finishes, and a lot of brands will shed as much paper lint as they pick up dust.
Ouch, my advice is too late here.
I’ve been through this several times. First thing I do is clear out any and all valuables from the house, easier to keep clean.
The other thing I do may be less obvious. I take some box fans on the windward side of the house blowing in, and some box fans on the leeward side blowing out. As the dust gets raised, a good part of it simply blows out of the house right then and there. I’ve always had problems with vacuum filters clogging up right away, so I use the thing as a blower, again raising the dust up and letting the air currents carry it outside. It takes a few hours but it’s really effective.
Dry wall dust is hard and sharp, your things will need a wipe afterward so be very gentle, try to use a lifting action. The less back and forth action the better.
Congratulations, you can spend two weeks in Hawai’i with the money you saved.