Antique furniture is classy, beautiful and expensive. But do you know what one of the main qualities of any antique piece of furniture is? It is old. This leads to one curious and often taunting problem – antique furniture is often too complex to clean. You do not wash to use harsh powerful chemical products in order to handle such a line of work, at least if you want to continue enjoying the old desk or the wardrobe that your great great-grandma received as a gift from the Kingdom of Prussia the way you are supposed to.

So, here are several things that you can do.

Antique furniture sanitation – the best strategy  

1. The first thing to do is to go to your local store and pick up the mildest cleaner possible. We recommend something organic, lacking powerful chemicals. We live in the 21^stcentury after all, green detergents are all around the place and it would be a shame if you are not using them already.
2. One of the best solutions for cleaning antique furniture is an eco-friendly dish soap dissolved in water. Another thing that you can use in order to removegrime, can be found in almost any hardware store – it is the so called furniture paste wax.
3. Once you have made a decision on the cleaner that you are going to use, just rub the surface of the furniture that you are attempting to sanitize using the softest cloth that you have around the house. Wet the rag, then use gentle motions to rub down the surface. Just remember to avoid rubbing at all costs and to follow the direction of the grain of the wood. You need to be extra careful with your antiques, if you want them to live on for the generations to come.
4. If there is asmall crack on the surface of the piece that have grime or stains in, you can use – again very carefully and gently – steel wool to remove them. Force is not your friend in these cases – all it is going to do is damage the finish, which is something that you would want to avoid at all costs.
5. Anything hashard to reach places, and your precious piece of antique furniture does not make an exception to that rule. No spot should go overlooked when it comes to the proper maintenance of your pieces, which is why you need to be properly equipped to clean such areas. How to do that, you ask? Well, the answer is simple – get a toothbrush (preferably not the one you use on your teeth). Dip the toothbrush in the sanitation solution and rub following the grain until the grime and built-up dirt are gone.
6. After you are finished cleaning, you should wipe down the furniture using a dry soft cloth andthen leave it to dry by itself.  You can think about polishing the whole surface of the piece now that you are finished cleaning it, so that you preserve it for the generations to come.