If you happen to have toddlers or preschoolers in the house, your wooden furniture will likely not be safe from crayon drawings or, even worse, marker drawings. No matter how your spouse might try to keep the kids in check, they will always love to draw and may not always know that it is not wise to draw on furniture, walls, or the door of your house or apartment. What do you do if your house if full of these drawings and you want to rid the house of all such markings?


Step 1. Don’t panic. Since the surface in question is wood, you have many options as to how to remove them. First try to wash it off with soap and water. Many drawing media can be easily washed away, such as watercolors or washable crayons, if your wife has pre-empted this occurrence by buying the washable kind.

Step 2. If it is not possible to scrub the drawings away, consider your options: if the wooden piece in question is painted, you can actually opt to paint over it; most pieces can be given a third or fourth coat with no problems at all. However, if the drawing has resulted in some of the paint chipping off, such as that done by a sharp pen, you might want to consider scraping off the old paint and repainting the whole thing a new shade.

Step 3. If the surface in question happens to be oil stained or varnished, still, there is no need to panic. The fact that the surface is made of wood gives you hope: all you will need will be some sandpaper, a sander, if you have access to one, and new varnish or oil stain, along with some wood putty.

Step 4. Use the sander to sand off a thin portion of the wood. Technically, it will make no difference. Should it result in some uneven portions, though, you can quickly remedy that by applying wood putty to the uneven areas, and then running your sander over the area again. If you do not have a sander, you can do it manually using sandpaper: just be sure to install it to a thick piece of wood that you can easily hold in your hand without subjecting your palm to the direct friction caused by rubbing the sandpaper on the wooden surface.

Step 5. When you are done sanding the surface to an acceptable smoothness, you can proceed with the process of applying varnish or wood stain, whatever was the original finish on the furniture, wall, or door. By the time you are done, nobody will ever be the wiser that that surface used to be the canvass of a very artistically-inclined preschooler!