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

[drcollie]

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.