Guys! I have my hands FULL at the moment! Remember this lovely thing I happened upon at a garage sale this Summer? Such a gorgeous mid-century china cabinet. But, it needs some work… Sanding for days! So, I’m taking a little break from all that wood dust, and I’m moving onto the hardware. And… I need to remove 60 years of tarnish from this hardware. Yikes.

I had a few methods floating around in my noggin… I remembered my Mom using ketchup on silverware, and I’m sure I’ve seen people soak hardware in good ol’ Coca-Cola for a day. And, then there is the one where you boil water with baking soda? I think?

But, last week I finally got around to cleaning out my broom/cleaning closet and remembered I had a little Bar Keepers Friend kicking around in there. I’ve only ever used it on my ceramic stovetop… but didn’t it say something about brass??

Yeeeeah it did!

 

Look at that shine! And, it was actually pretty easy. Grab your hardware, Bar Keepers, a damp cloth, and maybe some paper towel. Oh, and if your hardware has some nooks and crannies, a skewer (or maybe a wire brush) might be handy too.

One of these things is not like the other… and it only took about 5 minutes to remove the tarnish!

First, I applied the Bar Keepers to the hardware, and let it sit a minute, just a minute… it starts working fast! Then I grabbed my cloth and started rubbing. My hardware was pretty dark… so I actually repeated this process.

I used some paper towel wrapped around a bbq skewer to push into the little nooks under the handles.

Then I gave them a quick scrub under water. I actually used a SOS pad, and that gave them a little extra shine. Dry them off, and you’re done.

Blingy blingy. They still have a little patina in the rope detail on the edges which I actually really like. Totally a step in the right direction of honouring the age of my lovely vintage cabinet, but letting her shine a little — and give her another 60 years.