I have a mid-century modern house; it's in pretty good shape... in some ways a dream home.
Most of the wood, especially in the ceiling, is well maintained. However, some of the built-in cabinets are dinged up from fingernails/etc... hitting them over the years. The cabinets are made of edge-grain fir, and are stained with several coats of varnish; looks somewhat like the varnish was allowed to soak in significantly and not fully wiped off... perhaps was a style at the time.
Anyway, I'm trying to figure out if there is a relatively easy way to clean it up, and make it look fresher/newer.
I was thinking that I could use some solvent (ethyl acetate/acetone possibly; would prefer to avoid carcinogens like toluene/xylene if possible) to wipe off and clean up the surface coating, and then apply a coat or two of fresh varnish. Not sure if i'd give it a coating a polyurethane afterwards... currently there does not appear to be any.
This approximate procedure was used by a contractor on our stairs before, and it seemed to work well. He insisted on not using any poly... claimed that adding poly AFTER the varnish would cause problems and prevent it from drying fully (though I know this is opposite of conventional wisdom).
Does anyone have any advice on how to do this effectively?
I DO NOT want to do any sanding; it would make a huge mess and would add significant time investment to the project.
I was thinking of testing out this method on the inside of a cabinet first (or some less visible spot).
