What can I do for this wood table?

[Biscuits & Gravy]

Our kitchen table is wood, handcrafted, and has been in storage for the past year. The varnish needs some love. If I wipe it down and set something on top of it while it is even the slightest bit wet stuff sticks to it. If it is paper it leaves paper bits behind stuck to the table. It has kind of a sticky feel to it, too. Is there something I can use to revitalize it without needing to refinish? It still looks great, just suffering from neglect and age. I'm sure being in a hot storage space did not help it either.

[green_momma2007]

Usually when the finish starts getting sticky that means that it is time to strip it. I have the same problem with my bedroom furniture and I was going to refinish them, but I've decided to get a new bedroom set. Good luck with your table.

[dbsam]

green_momma2007 is probably correct that it needs to be refinished, but there is one product you might want to try first. I used it twenty years ago and it definately is not 'green' but it might help. I believe it was called 'finish feeder'. I used it on an antique piece that had a buildup of wax and oils on it. I'm guessing it had turpentine in it to help break down the grime.

[sunnysandiegan]

Without doing a full refinish job, you can try lightly sanding it first. Use a green scrubby first. If that doesn't help, move to a very fine steel wool. As long as your touch is fairly light, neither of those will ruin the finish yet will help remove some of the build-up and tackiness. It'll buy you a little time.

When you do go to refinish it, there is a product out there that some of my neighbors swear by. It is called Restore-It (or very similar) and comes from PA. It can be purchased online. As long as you catch the problem soon enough, it does do a wonderful job! We all have old kitchen cabinets with white-washed red oak veneers and the neighbors who used this product caught the aging process soon enough and their cabinets look really, really nice. I didn't catch mine on time and mine look less than nice because the finish was being destroyed on the lower cabinets long before the upper cabinets, so now they are mismatched. (FWIW, both my upper cabinets and lower cabinets look better than before I used the product. They just don't look the same as each other.) You may already be passed that point. However, you are refinishing one piece, so it won't matter if it doesn't match anything else unless your chairs are the same.