How to do a furniture touch up on sun faded wood items

My wife asked me if there was anything I could do to two of our tiger maple pieces in our family room that were sun-damaged and badly faded. I said 'Sure' so I took them out in my garage and thought I would document the procedure in case someone else has the same issues. Now, this is NOT a full re-strip and re-finish. I know how to do that as well, but its ten times more time consuming and requires a lot more work, and more materials. This is simply a very quick touch-up to make the pieces more presentable, it won't be a full finish repair. Here's what the pieces looked liked when I took them into the garage today. One is a sofa table by JLTreharn, the other a side table by John Buchanan. The sofa table is in a lot worse shape than the side table. The goal here is to not make them like new, but 90% better without spending too much time on them. Here's what they looked like before I started work on them.

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A trip to the store today was in order for materials. First at the craft store, to get a tube of Artist Oil Burnt Umber for $ 6. This is the same paint that artists use to paint portraits with, and you must get the oil variant, do not try it with the acrylic ones, they won't work. This paint has a massive open time to dry, so you have hours to play with it which allows you to apply and shade leisurely, no need to rush. We also need some mineral spirits ( $ 8) , # 0000 Steel Wool, ( $ 4) A spray can of clear lacquer, ( $ 4) some latex medical gloves and a couple of rags. And a helper - who in this case thinks its more important to play with a toy in the garage than work on the tables.

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Our first step is to take the mineral spirits and go over all the surface areas of the wood on the tables. This removes all waxes and oils, and other debris without damaging the original wood finish. Once dry, we squeeze out some burnt umber on the table and coat it heavily on the top.

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Now we are going to take our rag (make sure you have the gloves on, the oil based paint will stain your skin and you will have it on your hands for several days otherwise), and simply push it on the piece and shade it with the rag. Push it to and from to get the color tone and build you want, and try to take out the streaking marks. You have lots of time to work this finish, its very slow drying. Make a mistake? Go right back and re-tone it. Eyeball the pieces and see what looks good to you. Here's a photo of 1/2 the table based done, the other half showing the sun fade we started with.

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OK! After 10 minutes on each table, here's the results. I think they look MUCH better (so does my wife) and then I will set them aside until tomorrow when the oil paint is dry. Then I will clear coat them with the lacquer to seal in the toner paint, and lightly steel wool the lacquer topcoat when its dry using the # 0000 steel wool. Then it will go back in the house. Total time on these pieces will be about 1 hour, and materials are under $ 30. It gives new life to these tired and faded pieces without much work or cost...that's all there is to it.

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