Help! Just bought a Welsh dresser that stinks of cigarette smoke

[Moonio]

Is there any way to fix this or do I have to chalk it up to experience and kiss goodbye to a hundred quid? Couldn't tell at all when bringing it into the house and now it's...obvious

Can you sand it down and re oil it?

Leave it outside for a while?

A good clean with sugar soap might help.

Hate to say that we did the same once with a bookcase.

Tried all sorts, even sanding it and repainting.

Still bloody stank, and we gave it away.

Oh my God I'm so angry with myself!

Wipe it down with neat white vinegar - you may have to repeat a couple of times. Place bowls of white vinegar inside and leave for a couple of days.

It will smell like a chippy, but the smell will fade and should get rid of the smoky smell.

Don’t paint it before doing this as you risk sealing the smell in!

Don’t worry, it absolutely is fixable.

💐thank you I really hope so @Pollymollydolly

Give it a good clean with sugar soap.
When it is dry, fill the cupboard bit with crumpled newspaper.

Have you or has anyone you know got a garage you could leave it in for a few weeks? The smell might gradually go away

Just use sugar soap. It'll do just the job.

Thanks, I'll get some sugar soap. We've done the vinegar and house reeks of it but we can still smell the smoke :-(

Could you also sprinkle bicarbonate of soda inside it, leave overnight, then hoover the powder up? This might need repeating.

@kittybee

Could you also sprinkle bicarbonate of soda inside it, leave overnight, then hoover the powder up? This might need repeating.

Or put the bicarb in bowls. Then chuck out and repeat as necessary - might take a few goes.

How disappointing for you. If you're resigned to losing the money, I suppose you have nothing to lose by leaving it outside for a bit then using wax polish I suppose, but there's always the danger that you'll end up with something that smells of a combination of smoke and polish.

Oh this is bringing back memories! My dh and I bought a chesterfield suite that my in-laws kindly kept in their house until we had moved, think months. Well we visited them and it stank of smoke ! I was mortified but eventually the smell went away. They were very kind about it !

Thanks, I'll add bicarb to the mix :-)

Cleaning with white vinegar/water solution or sugar soap should work.

Another one for sugar soap. Had to do my whole house with it when I moved in. Vowed never to buy from a smoker again!

Once it’s scrubbed down, use traditional beeswax furniture polish on it.

@ConnieCaterpillar70

Hate to say that we did the same once with a bookcase.

Tried all sorts, even sanding it and repainting.

Still bloody stank, and we gave it away.

Same. Had it for 6 months aswell, it literally made the whole house smell of smoke

I don’t want to depress you, OP, but I inherited some lovely leather bound books from an elderly chain smoking aunt over 40 years ago. I can still faintly smell tobacco when I open the pages!
Tobacco smoke is one of the hardest smells to get rid of. It even permeates plaster in walls. I remember Kirsty Alsop advising a buyer to strip a smoker’s house right back to bare brickwork and replaster from scratch, as the only guaranteed way to remove it.
I hope the various methods suggested here will work, but I suspect the smell will have absorbed deep into the wood of your dresser.

My parents bought a beautiful dining table from smokers and it was probably a year before the smell went entirely.

In addition to the suggestions above, put little dishes of bicarb inside and change regularly. Keep the doors of the dresser open when you can and air the room it’s in as much as possible. It’ll get worse before it gets better when the weather gets warmer, I’m afraid.

I bought some shelves and had to bin them, despite scrubbing the smell was there. It isn’t just the smell either, if it smells of fag smoke then it has absorbed all sorts of nasty stuff that will be soaked into the wood.

However, I did buy a fire surround and that stank, but now after airing and painting , it is ok. So I think it depends quite how long it sat in a smokers house , and how heavily they smoked.

I had a wooden rocking chair that was really bad. I left it outside for a couple of days. Cleaned it with sugar soap and it was okay afterwards. I guess it maybe depends on how many years of smoking it has had. Hope you can get it fresh.

Hi, I just wondered how your getting on with the dresser and if anything worked for you? I’m in the exact same situation!! I bought a dresser of Facebook yesterday and it absolutely STINKS! I’ve been using neutradol, fabreeze, bicarb soda. I feel like it’s getting worse!!