Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We finished up some projects around the house and I’ve got a full list of projects to complete this week. On top of that, we watched our favorite football teams add another win to their belts. Woohoo!
Today I’ve got a quick life hack sort of post to share with you. It’s how to clean your farmhouse table. This idea came about in a bit of a strange way. When we built our farmhouse table a year and a half ago, I bought placemats and planned to use them at every single meal. Then I realized that I’d be washing them every single day given the amount of stuff my kiddos seem to spill. One day, I asked my oldest (he was almost 7 at the time) to vacuum the dining room. I came out to find this.
When I saw him, about 50% of me was trying not to faint at the site of my son possibly scratching the new tabletop we had just finished building. The other 50% of me started thinking that maybe this could work in some way.
After that I decided to test out his theory for myself. There is never a lack of crumbs that get stuck in the joints of our farmhouse table and bench. Every time I wipe the table down, a lot of those loose crumbs also get stuck in the joints. I had been wondering how I was going to keep that clean, when I happened to walk in on my son vacuuming the table. I decided to grab an old toothbrush that I had reserved for cleaning my wedding ring, and the vacuum cleaner. I don’t know what this attachment is called, but I call it the baseboard attachment.
The vacuum alone will get out the loose crumbs, but the toothbrush helps to get out the crumbs that are really stuck in there. Especially those that get stuck when my youngest spills his water cup all over the table, which happens at least once a week.
To make sure the crumbs don’t make their way back in, I vacuum at the same time as I run the toothbrush along all of the joints. I don’t push too hard with the toothbrush, because that just seems to push the crumbs even farther out of reach. Just enough to loosen them up and the vacuum cleaner cleans them all out!
You can see the tragic before and the glorious after. While I do not encourage my boys to vacuum the top of the table, I am glad that I caught my oldest doing it one day. Now I can keep my table clean and free of gunk.
Once I’ve got the joint lines crumb free, I clean the top of the table with a simple mixture of dishsoap and water. I mix maybe 1/2 tbsp of dish soap in a spray bottle of water. It keeps the table clean without eating away at the finish. When I’m feeling extra motivated (aka company is coming over), I also spray some furniture polish (like Pledge) on top to make it extra shiny.
I hope this quick little cleaning tip helps you out the next time you try to pick the crumbs out of your farmhouse table. It’s a bit unconventional, but it definitely works for me!
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This is exactly how I clean that pesky space between my stove and the countertop!
You can use the vacuum cleaner to clean the house and the point with the table you can use the piece of cloth to clean that. Is it not enough?
I actually have this kind of table at home, it really takes a lot of time cleaning. Thanks to this, I can do it easily, these tips are helpful.
I’m glad you found it helpful! It’s amazing what a kid’s thoughts on cleaning can teach you;)
I got sick and tired of cleaning my table, very similar to this one, I ended up filling in the grooves and waterloxing the top. I love it now.
May I ask what you filled the grooves with? Because I bought some Minwax black wood putty to fill in mine, but it doesn’t seem to want to stay put in there.
I’ve read that you shouldn’t fill the grooves because they we’ve a purpose: to allow the wood to expand and contract with the changing temps, but also found a furniture maker that filled their grooves table tops with clear reactive polymer. Make extra sure the grooves are clean before proceeding. It’s clear so you can enjoy the look of the grooves without the high maintenance cleaning. Hope that helps.
may I ask what you filled the grooves with? I bought Minwax black wood putty and tried this a few months back but it doesn’t seem to want to stick in there. I hate this problem with the table too and have been vacuuming mine for some time now. Except that I just use the little brush attachment that came with the machine. But I would love to find something to fill the grooves.
I have heard of people filling theirs in with epoxy and being very happy with the results.
That would be a crevice tool. Very appropriate for that crevice! And love the expert vacuumer!
Thanks so much for telling me what it is! I think I always just called it a baseboard attachment or something like that, since I always used it against the baseboards;)
Hi! I have this exact same problem with our farmhouse table. We eat and do crafts on it and the stuff stuck in the grooves is straight up embarrassing!!! Thank tou for sharing the tooth brush trick. Up until now I’ve been wrapping a butter knife with s kitchen towel and getting into the grooves ( our grooves are much larger than yours so it worked, but I was definitely afraid u was damaging the finish). I do vacuum when I need to be quick but that only gets the dry crumbs, nothing wet and sticky will come up with the vacuum. I’m definitely going to give the old toothbrush trick a try!!!
I totally know what you mean! If it’s been a while since I’ve busted out the toothbrush, I get so embarrassed by the crumbs!
So I just did a Google search to see if I could find a special way to clean our groovy table and wouldn’t you know, vacuuming is what I do…something I figured out aster the handheld broom and dustpan idea wasn’t as effective as I thought. I use a knife though instead of a toothbrush but I have one underived the sink I’m going to get out and try. Our top isn’t smooth though which makes it a bit of a challenge. I am going to try the pledge idea as well. It has a matte finish but I would like it to look a little more polished after I clean it. Wish me luck!
So excited about this post! We have grooves in our table too. Yesterday I went at them with a streak knife. This is a much better approach lol. Thank you!
LOL! I have a few stubborn ice cream sprinkles in there, but for the most part this method works great!