Vintage Wooden Kitchen Items: A Short List and How To Care For Them

Who loves vintage wooden kitchen items? I sure do and I am sharing a short list of my favorites and some tips on how to care for them.

Raise your hand if you love adding vintage touches around your home! I know I do! I am particularly drawn to vintage kitchen items specifically. There is just something nostalgic about old kitchen items. You know, the ones that have cooked ‘many a meal’ and that have the honest age to prove it. Today, I wanted to share a bit about vintage kitchen items and how to clean them. Let’s begin by just making a quick, short list of some of the beautiful pieces that I like to hunt for. They include:

• Rolling Pins
• Spoons
• Bread Boards
• Mashers
• Butter Paddles
• Butter Molds
• Dough Bowls

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to score a gorgeous vintage wooden bread board. It was such a fun find and I was thrilled to get it home, get it cleaned up, and add it to my kitchen collection! As many of you may know, I have quite the collection of vintage kitchen things and I really am drawn to wooden items in particular. Their patina, age, and wear just can not be beat! I seem to find them often. Sometimes they are spotless and other times they are down right filthy. Regardless, I do always clean them and today I thought I would share the process of how to clean vintage wooden kitchen finds.

Wash Them With Dish Soap

This is always my first step. I simply place my vintage wooden kitchen finds in a warm soapy bath and let them soak for a bit. I have a designated sponge that I use only on my vintage items, and I use that to scrub off any build up. Once clean, I take a dish towel and dry the item off. I will often times lay the item out in the sun for a bit to help ensure that it is completely dry. You just want to make sure the item is completely dry before you put it away.

TIP: I do not recommend putting your wooden kitchen items into the dishwasher. The high water temperatures are not good for the wood and if your item absorbs too much water it can swell and crack.

Remove Any Harsh Smells

Recently I bought a masher at an estate sale. I pulled it out of an abandoned old tool box of all places and it smelled of oil and grime. If you are familiar with ‘that smell’ then you know that the masher needed some major help. To remove the grimy smell, I simply rubbed lemon all over it and then I rubbed in some baking powder on top. It made a paste of sorts and I let it sit for about a half an hour. After that I just washed it off and immediately the smell improved. I repeated the process twice and that took care of the harsh smell for good!

*I shared this process in my IG stories a few weeks ago and my IG community loved it. That is what inspired this post!

Correct Burned Areas – As Needed

I rather enjoy the wear on some of these vintage wooden kitchen items, even the burn spots. But – every once in a while, I have found a piece that needed a little ‘help.’ When I do, I simply use a very soft grit sandpaper and give it a little scrubbing. Once you remove the burn marking to your liking, be sure to just rinse off the extra wood dust and dry it well.

Maintenance

You may find that some of your vintage wooden kitchen items may look ‘dry.’ There is an easy fix for that. Simply rubbing mineral oil on your item will help to revive it. There are other products out there that also bring life back into dull wooden pieces. I particularly enjoy using Boos Block Mystery Oil. I find this to be my favorite thing to use. It is affordable and goes a long way! It prevents splitting and cracking and is completely food safe! Best of all, I feel that Boos Block does the best job at reviving my pieces.

TIP: Do not use the typical food based oils that you may have around the kitchen already such as vegetable oil because those oils can go rancid.

Using These Items

I personally do not use the vintage wooden kitchen items that I find and bring home. I always used them strictly as decor. However, my mom and dad do. Here are a few points worth mentioning:

• When exposed to high temperatures, wooden kitchen items may sometimes split as they dry out. Make sure you throw those items away or stop using them around food because there is a chance that wood shavings could shed into your food. Also, old food could get trapped in the cracks.
  
• Sometimes, wooden cutting boards and such will stain. For example, highly pigmented foods, such as tomato sauce or berries, can leave a messy stain behind. If that happens just wash your items as you normally would and continue to use your wooden pieces. They’re still safe to use if they’re stained, and the stains will eventually fade.
  
• Wooden utensils are great to use with nonstick cookware because they won’t scratch nonstick pots and pans like some other metal utensils may.
  
  

Wrap Up

I have always been fascinated with the history of ‘the kitchen” and while kitchens have certainly changed over the years (See This article by darlinggorumet.com), I feel like wooden kitchen items are timeless and will be around forever … as long as we care for them well! Oh, and if you enjoyed this then you may also enjoy reading all about how I cleaned an old dough bowl that was marked 1939! Click here to check it out!

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