Good for the Wood

I bought a sweet little tray at a yard sale last summer that was in rough shape, but had a Kjeni Denmark sticker (here's a similar tray on Etsy).  I'm such a Euro-snob, I scooped it up right away.  Whenever I shop, "Made in Canada" is 10 points, "Made in USA" warrants a 9.5 and made anywhere in Europe is 9.  Finding things not made in China is one of the many reasons I love vintage.

Anyway, the little Danish modern teak tray was originally shop-bound.  I don't tinker with things for sale (other than cleaning most things) so I left it alone, even though I really wanted to fix it.  When I was in my home town last week, the tray was sitting on a counter where it caught my Dad's eye.  He was quite smitten with it, and wanted it for his bedside table, which is also teak.  He thought it would be a perfect catchall that would help protect the table as well (like father like daughter, I guess).  I was pretty surprised that my Dad wanted to accessorize his bedside table, and had the eye to pick something so perfect.  I happily handed it over, but we decided it needed a little TLC before my Mom would approve of its new home.  While my Dad had a snack and "supervised," I grabbed some teak oil and transformed the tray.  I was dubious about its makeover potential, but was amazed at the difference.  I've only ever oiled one piece of our teak furniture and because I only did one coat, it looked pretty much the same.  Not this tray!  It looks amazing now!!  So I'm feeling motivated to not be so darn lazy and actually care for our teak.

How-to:

What I did special this time was follow the instructions on the label (genius!): apply a generous coat with a soft cloth, allow to dry for two hours, wipe off excess and repeat as needed.  I realized the teak absorbs the first few coats, but four or five made a real difference.  Tip: to reach the inside edge, I used a Q-tip.

Before, the tray was dry and washed out looking (you can really see the how dry it was in the second photo):

Here is the tray with half an application of teak oil, so you can really see the difference.

It looks fabulous now.  (Notice how the little bowl did make its way to my parents' home??).