How To Remove Water Rings From Wood

We've all seen this - the dreaded water ring. There's no avoiding them really, especially if you have kids.

This little table was my grandmother's. It sits by the back door and is usually the landing spot for keys, the newspaper, or baseball caps. Yesterday someone left a glass of ice water on it (you know who you are, and you're getting 50 lashes with a wet noodle!)

I saw the water mark on the table top, and was a little panicked.

Honestly, the table isn't in the best condition, so I always have a table runner or a large plant, or both, on it.  But I can't hide a watermark this obvious! So, I put on my big girl pants and decided to fix the problem.

Here's what it looked like up close:

Ugh! I've tried to remove water stains from wood before. I've used mayonnaise, olive oil, toothpaste - none of them worked for me. I even ordered a product from those late night infomercials - and also had limited success.

Then I remembered the iron trick I've seen over the years. You take a white cotton cloth (a cloth napkin, t-shirt, white pillow case, etc. ). Set your iron to medium heat with the steam setting OFF, and "iron" the white cloth on top of the water mark. Do this carefully, and only leave the iron on the stain for a few seconds at a time.

The heat of the iron draws the moisture from the wood. I gently ironed the spot for a few minutes in total, but was a little hesitant to do it for much longer for fear of scorching the wood. Here's what it looks like now!

I know you cans still see the mark, but it's much better. And from a few feet away, you can't even tell it's there.

Phew! Panic over!

(Encouraged by the results, I also used this method to remove a 5 year old water mark from an old desk, with the same results.)

Do you know of any tricks to completely remove water marks from wood?