Why does antique furniture smell

Uhm, Yes, please! It really is a beautiful old piece with beautiful character and patina. Nothing of value, or valuable to me had ever been stored in there. I even have an older post with 12 Tips for Cleaning Vintage Finds.

Read on! Once I started peeling back the lining material, I realized it was made up of an almost cardboard like material. Thanks for letting me know. And so glad your stinky furniture is no more! I have an old chest of drawers that belonged to my mother-in-law. The smell inside it is unbearable!

None of those worked. Right now, the chest is sitting empty in a spare room. Got my fingers crossed that the Vodka works. Will post results! I would use the cheapest quality vodka for cleaning. No need to invest in a top shelf liquor for this. The local DIY shop recommended methylated spirits.

Would this be a good substitute do you think? And any proof vodka should work, I would think. Linda W tweet, that is an awesome tip with the vodka..

I am going to have to try that. I have a dresser that has an old smell in it.. A great post also. Thank you Rena. I tried Fabreze, leaving dryer sheets in it and putting it in my living room. The charcoal trick really worked for me. I put berry baskets with a few bricketts in the fridge, a musty closet, under sink, and old nicotine saturated furniture drawers. No harsh chemicals! Musty and stinky odors are a problem with old furniture, but I love hearing what has worked for other people.

When you put charcoal on the drawers did you leave the drawers open or closed? I have an old dresser that when I brought it home stings like old and musty, I have tried everything now I just bought a bag of charcoal and distribute it …how many pieces did you use in each drawer too?

I had a dresser that had been sitting in the garage for who knows how long. It had dead mice and tirds, bird feathers from them nesting in open drawers and musty, molding pieces of clothing and lots of bird shit. I cleaned it up with a touch of bleach, lots of fantastic with water. Then made newspaper pouches and filled each with charcoal briquets. Placed one in each drawer and left for a couple of weeks. Stench gone. Sanded it down, refinished it, looks and smells like new.

This idea was given to be by a caregiver in a seniors home. It was how they freshened the dresser drawers of seniors. I have used a giant box of soda to get rid of the smell that raccoons left up inside a chimney. It works well, but you may have to repeat the treatment a couple of times. Not a furniture tip, but might be adapted to some furniture. Works awesome!! Smells like burnt wood,cat urine to name a few,it works!!

I used a two step approach on old wood floors where a cat had repeatedly peed. I poured on vinegar, left it to soak in and dry, then mopping with bleach water. This works amazing well on cat, dog, and human urine.

How do you get cigarette smell out of a vehicle? A strong mix of vinegar and water scrub has been tried with very little success. Another good odor-absorber is charcoal — add an open bag or tray of it to the drawers and leave for a few days — this worked great when we apparently had a mouse or some other little critter die in the outside wall of our main floor guest room, and the pest removal service said it would have required cutting numerous openings throughout the wall to try to find and remove it.

We left a large open bag of charcoal in there for a few days, and it quickly absorbed the foul odor while the critter was decaying UGH. Another idea is KILZ, which a client selling her house used to effectively cover cat urine odors in the flooring of her sunporch.

TSP is the way to go—definitely! I have re-habbed a lot of old furniture and TSP is the bomb! Any suggestions how to get the odor out of leather couches? I have 3 dogs…enough said, right?!! My husband and a friend manufacture a product that is an odor Kill product that works well to take care of odors.

Gross, you should know better. I usually rely on this for deodorizing and yes, this old tried and true method can work, however for really old smelly stuff I have not found it to be successful.

I find it works better at removing food and cigarette odours. What you do is pour vinegar perhaps a cup into a bowl and just let it sit in open air to deodorize and absorb mild odours. I know! Well, people have talked about this working. You scoop some fresh litter into a bowl and let it sit inside the antique. This worked actually quite well. For some reason we have scented kitty litter I think it was on sale , so it left an artificial floral scent that I was not too fond of.

I counteracted that by leaving a bowl of baking soda in the drawer for a day once the litter came out and the fake floral smell was gone. Why the heck would an onion, potentially the stinkiest of all vegetables, be a good idea for deodorizing an antique? Despite how incredibly counter-intuitive this sounds, apparently the sulfuric compounds in an onion yes, the same ones that make you cry will absorb the old musty smells and totally neutralize the piece within 24 hours.

Simply cut the onion in half, place it in a bowl and stick in the furniture somehow drawer etc. I found the onion smell to be really strong actually, despite what some other people have said about this method. It did remove some of the odour but it left behind a strong odour afterward.