Working with Woodwork

I know we aren't the first people to ever tour a home that's full of the seller's stuff and not notice the imperfections in the details until you're moving into an empty house.  That's totally what happened to Robert and me.  There weren't any catastrophic surprises, but one bummer of a surprise was the awful condition of the woodwork.  I mean ALL of the woodwork.  The sellers had three children and two indoor dogs, and the woodwork had seen better days.  The three main areas of problems were dirt/grime, paint, and scratches.

For the dirt, I used Murphy Oil Soap.  The baseboards were very dusty and grimy from the dogs, the cabinet doors had a lot of grease on them, and the doors were just dusty.  This stuff did a great job of cleaning everything and making the house smell really nice.  It has sort of a citrus smell, and it's nice to know that it's derived from 98% natural ingredients.  It's also super cheap when you pay $6.50 for a two pack and only mix 1/4 cup of the soap with a gallon of water.  It goes a long way!  

The sellers were unbelievably sloppy painters.  There are globs, splatters, and streaks of paint everywhere!  Our realtor, a friend who is a painter, and a couple of other people recommended Goof Off.  Based off of the smell, I'd say it's basically paint thinner.  I wouldn't suggest using it around children or animals.  We had to open the windows and turn on fans when we used it, and the smell still lingered for quite some time.  I would say that the Goof Off worked well for getting paint off of the bath tubs, but it really didn't do much for the trim.  I think some of it had to do with the fact that the paint had been on there for quite some time.  Also, when we did it in a test area it took off some of the paint from the wall due to rubbing it, and it took away some of the finish on the trim.  I'm trying to make myself be at peace and tell myself to get over the paint on the trim because realistically it's going to be there for the rest of the time we live here.  We can't afford new trim, and we're not in a place in our lives where we have the time to paint it, especially when I think of the domino effect of painting the trim, then needing to paint the doors, and then the window sills, and then the cabinets.  Holy cow!

Lastly, the woodwork was horribly scratch.  See three children and two dogs from above.  Seriously.  Scratched beyond belief.  Sometimes I wonder how a family could treat stuff this poorly.  I just don't feel like I treat things like they did.  I don't know.  Anyway, everything was scratched.  Even the insides of the lower kitchen cabinets were scratched.  How does that even happen?  I like to imagine how.  My guess on this one is that they kept the dog food in this cabinet, and the dogs would get pumped when the owners were getting out there food.  Who knows.  Memaw provided me with some Old English Scratch Cover for dark wood.  It worked wonders!  I feel like I should be a spokesperson for Old English!  I don't feel like we have super dark wood.  I would call it medium, but the dark cover was a great match.  I give you the before and after of the inside of a kitchen cabinet door:

Tell me this doesn't look like a different door.  I can't say enough about it.  I feel a little crazy saying how much I love this, but it really restored our woodwork, and it looks  good as new now.