Heat+Heat=Magic!

My dad has had his formal dining room table for as long as I can remember. On special occasions when the entire family would come over to enjoy a holiday feast, hot dishes would go straight from the oven to the table when there was no counter space left. Even with potholders underneath, the damage was pretty bad. I just wish I would have been old enough to realize what was happening to his beautiful furniture so I could have done a slow-motion dive across the room, yelling "NOOOOO!" LOL.

Here is a particularly large and nasty spot, left by a big casserole dish.

GASP.

So Daddy has been looking for solutions to this problem for at least a year now. He has tried SO many things, including whole-egg mayo directly on the heat mark left overnight, a method many people will swear by. This did nothing but make our dining room smell funny, possibly due to the age and size of the mark.

And then... Pinterest to the rescue!

I found a potential solution here, thinking that it was definitely worth a shot.

Heat marks are caused from a combination of moisture and extreme heat. The solution: more heat and moisture. Could it work? We were going to find out.

The materials were especially easy to obtain. You will need:
--An iron, on medium heat and steam setting turned ON.
--2 linen cloths (I used household rags)
--Water. I found that putting water in a spray bottle greatly increased the ease of the project.

After trying several different methods, I finally found the one that helped the most.
1) Spray water directly onto the affected area.
2) Place one cloth over the water, and mist it down pretty thoroughly.
3) Repeat step 2 with the other cloth.
4) Iron for about 30 seconds. You will need to keep your iron moving.
Steam should be rising the entire time you are ironing. If at any point you don't see steam, just spritz the hell out of the cloths and do it again.

Now for the results...

I can almost hear angels singing!

I tackled the middle of the spot first, and when I saw the improvement I just couldn't wait to finish to take an "after" picture! So there you have it.

There were some black streaks on the rags after I finished, but we determined those to be from dust and furniture polish being taken off by the heat of the iron. So don't be alarmed. (:

I hope this post can be of service for someone facing the same woes as my father! Good luck!