Trying Out Stain Markers

Happy April! It's April Fools Day, but I swear I'm not fooling anyone! Serious business here people. So, yesterday I shared a little attempt to fix our stubborn couch cushions with velcro. A fix that only somewhat worked...but today I'm here to share another little living room "fix" that I feel pretty good about, and am happy to say that it was quite successful.

You know those little dents and dings that you sometimes get in your wooden furniture? Well we have our share in the living room, and since we have darker furniture in there, they tend to show those dents quite well. Normally you don't notice them unless you look really closely, so it's not something that bugs me horribly (a little character is good too, right?), but I especially notice it everytime I dust that wooden furniture...and I thought, 'Next time we go to Lowe's, I'm going to pick up one of those stain markers that supposedly hide all of those little dings so well...' So I did just that. I picked up my first ever wood stain marker and thought I'd try it out. (Warning: you're about to get up close and personal with our wood furniture.)

I ended up just going with the Red Mahogany color, since the furniture in the living room all has a similar tone - a dark brownish-red. I actually used it on four pieces of furniture in the living room: Both end tables flanking the couch, the side table, and the TV stand.

I followed the directions on the package for the most part, and I feel like it ended up working quite well. The end results aren't perfect, but the point is to make it a lot less noticeable, and unless you are really looking for it, you can't tell the dents and dings are there at all.

Here is the first piece of furniture I used it on - one of the end tables:

You can't really tell unless you look at it up close, but this one had a few dings, and one big scuff mark on the surface that is pretty noticeable:

Here's a closer look at that culprit for ya:

It had a few other scuffs in addition to that one:

And after using the stain marker (just a couple of coats, wiping the excess off in between), here are the end results. You can see that it covers up the lighter wood color so it's a lot less noticeable, especially from far away:

 

You can definitely see that it covered up that huge scuff on the top really well. Now the same end table looks pretty close to brand new!

I also tried in on the side table, which actually isn't too bad from the front:

But it did have one pretty scuffed up side:

After using the stain marker though, you couldn't even tell it had been scratched:

The other end table just had a few scuffs here and there that needed touching up:

With the stain marker, they looked a lot more seamless:

Finally, the TV table. The drawer fronts were the worst with this one!

There was even a huge scratch in the front:

After applying the stain marker, they were a heck of a lot less noticeable, once again. (Sorry for the horrible iPhone pics, but you get the idea!)

It even hid the huge scratch really well:

Again, it's not perfect, but it gives me a little more peace of mind. I'm most likely not going to be annoyed by little scratches and dents every time I dust in the living room now, so that's nice.

I would definitely say my first try with a stain marker was a success! My worst fear was going to be that the stain color didn't match up right, but it is literally so close to the color on all four pieces of furniture that you can't even tell. Highly recommend this easy fix any day!