Hello, today is the day to experiment. It turns out that a few days ago I went to the center of my city to buy a varnish for a small table that I am about to restore and I could only get transparent varnish. Which is fine and I actually bought it, although the idea of using a dark one seemed better to me.
So talking to my grandmother yesterday, she told her the idea I have to restore the table and she gave me a phrase as a joke, although very successful. Her phrase was; Pour coffee on it to make it dark haha.. And she laughed.
What she doesn't know is that she has created a monster, a monster with an idea 😂
Before experimenting with the table I'm talking about, I wanted to do a test and since I'm not one to waste material unnecessarily, I made a small base for the light ring.
It is made with a wooden stick that I took from a broken broom, it is not the most beautiful work I have done, although it works well to hold the light ring and to test if the coffee can dye, it is wonderful.
Now, in absolutely any type of wood that we are going to varnish, we must first do something important, sanding or scraping. In this case it has a very thin layer of enamel and it is easily removed. Maybe with the table it will take me a lot more work..
I do this because I am not going to submerge the entire piece in coffee, which could be done and let it cure for several days and we would have better results, but the amount of coffee needed would be absurd.
Once the piece of wood has been scraped or sanded, we must make the coffee. And since to tell the truth, this time I don't have low-quality coffee in each, I decided to make myself a nice cup of latte and use the leftover for the test. More than anything to not feel like I wasted anything 😊
For my latte, I put a tablespoon of powdered milk, a tablespoon of sugar, and a cup of freshly brewed coffee into the blender. I turned on the machine for 2 minutes and that's how I had my sparkling latte 😊
Once we verify that our coffee with milk turned out well, we can continue with the project. The idea is quite simple, paint the wood with coffee and see what happens, if the color disappears when it dries or if instead it looks great, but the ants eat such tasty wood 😂
Although, to avoid that, the coffee that I am using to paint does not have any sugar. Something important to keep in mind 😊
Two hands of coffee and half an hour of drying later, it was like this. IT WORKS!
And I must add, the wood smells wonderful, the combination of the smell of wood with that of coffee is perfect. I will definitely use this for the table that I am going to restore, it is an excellent trick and I have some ideas to improve it, I will leave you information below of everything that I have been scheming and something that I know many will like 😊
The coffee with milk was so good that I was even surprised 😂
IMPORTANT NOTES
The water will damage the wood. That was the first blunder I saw, although it has a very simple solution, make an infusion of coffee in oil. In this way, the oil will protect the wood, in fact, it is a good conservation method, if you use a rolling pin or wooden pallets in your kitchen, give them a pass of vegetable oil every 3 months 😊
It must be poor quality coffee. We know that what distinguishes good quality coffee from poor quality coffee is, for the most part, the art of roasting. You need a brown that is preferably past, so it will give more pigmentation to the wood, not to mention that the project will be cheaper.
In summary, if it can be done and it seems to me a super organic and natural option to give a darker tone to wooden products, I think it would not be necessary to add the varnish that I bought if I use coffee with oil, since the wood will be protected and thus I preserve more the beautiful and natural smell that remains.