How To Refurbish Scratched Wood: Simple Recipe For Getting Rid Of Scratches With Walnuts

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Over time scratches pile up on wooden furniture. Be they from moving, daily life, or a mixture of both, wooden items need some love after a while. 

There are all sorts of products companies will try to sell you on from paint pens to hide the scratch marks to chemical rubs. The problem with many of these products is that the ingredients aren’t usually transparent. Most often you have no idea what concoction of chemicals you are putting on your wooden surfaces. 

But there is a far simpler way! Introducing walnuts, yes walnuts. 

Usually we talk about walnuts as food that we consume, either you love walnuts or you think they taste like dirt. But regardless of your taste pallet, walnuts (and the oils they contain) happen to make for the perfect wood refurbishing tool.  

Will walnuts fix gashes in your wood where pieces are missing, no. Walnuts also won’t be able to match paint colors on wood furniture that has been painted over. 

However, walnuts can drastically improve scratched pure wooden surfaces. It’s ok if you’re a little skeptical. I was very skeptical when I first learned about this too but after trying it out I was blown away with the impressive results. 

Simple Recipe For Getting Rid Of Scratches With Walnuts: Step By Step Guide

1.Gather a few shelled walnuts from your cupboard. Depending on how large and how many scratches there are the more walnuts you will need. 

2. Take one shelled walnut and use it like a crayon, rubbing it over the scratch marks you are trying to get rid of. Please note that this will only work on pure wood surfaces (wood that has been painted over will not work). 

3. As you work the walnuts over the wooden surface you should notice that the walnuts will crumble, that’s to be expected. You should also notice that the scratch marks are disappearing. 

4. Keep rubbing the walnuts over all the scratch marks until they disappear. 

5. Take a soft clean cloth and wipe away any and all walnut pieces that may have crumbled off onto the wood. You can then compost the pieces of walnut left over. We would recommend not eating any walnut pieces you used on the wood surface as you likely do not know how clean that surface truly is. 

What Type Of Walnuts? 

Any walnuts you have on hand will do. They will need to be shelled. You can get walnuts at most local grocery stores or on Amazon.

Why Didn’t This Work For Me? 

If this walnut trick did not end up working for you a few things could be happening:

• Make sure the surface you are working with is pure wood. Any paint over the top of the wood will likely cause this trick not to work as the human eye will only be able to focus on the missing paint chip color. 

• Make sure you are trying to fix a scratch and not a missing chunk of wood. No matter how many walnuts you use they will not be able to replace a missing piece of wood. 

• Make sure the scratch you are attempting to fix isn’t a deep gash in the wood. While the walnuts can help lessen the visibility of deep gashes/scratches, they likely will not be able to remove the blemish completely from sight. 

All in all, we were extremely impressed by the results from using walnuts on the top of our dresser. The photos we took don’t even completely do this refurbished dresser justice. After using this walnut trick the dresser top looked even better than the day we got it second hand. 

Let us know how this trick went for you in the comments below!