Painting your house and the furniture in it, although a tiring job, is a very rewarding one as well. The sight of the newly painted room, as well as the furniture, can make all the fatigue go away in an instant. But that will not be the case if the smell of the paint thinner happens to linger in the room.
Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to remove the smell of paint thinner from the wood. You can use a lot of things from the traditional method of using fans to the more modern way of using vinegar to get rid of the smell.
Let us take a look at how to get rid of the paint thinner smell from wood so that the only thing you can sense is the beauty of the paint job itself.
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Let’s Find Out How to Get Rid of Paint Thinner Smell from Wood
The smell of paint thinner can hit your nose very hard. Some people even tear up because of the intensity of the strong smell. Surely you don’t want this smell to hit you while you are using your furniture to relax, do you? So, without any further ado, let us see how to get rid of the paint thinner smell.
1. Using Fans
The easiest way to get rid of the smell of paint, or any smell for that matter, is to have an abundance of moving air and open windows. Although only having open windows will do the job, having a few fans will make the smell go away faster.
You can get rid of the paint smell faster if you place a few box fans at the center of the room where the furniture is and on the doorway of that room, facing each of them towards the open windows. Make sure to turn the ACs and the heat off and close the air vents of your house so that the smell doesn’t spread throughout it.
2. Using Water
Using bucket loads of water is another very effective method of making paint thinner smell go away. Get a few buckets of water and place them throughout the room. Let them sit overnight. The water in these buckets will absorb the vapors of the paint and remove the smell. This is a very old way of removing paint smell, dating back to at least 1899.
3. Using Vinegar
Where buckets take up most of the space of your room, you can obtain the same result using only a few bowls of vinegar. Fill these bowls up with white vinegar and put them in various places in the room where you have your wooden furniture. The molecules of the paint vapor will then be neutralized by the acetic acid present in the vinegar.
If you want faster results, instead of using the white vinegar that is used for cooking purposes, use the household ones.
4. Using Baking Soda
Like vinegar, you can also fill the bowls with baking soda and place them accordingly to remove the smell off of your wooden furniture. These are especially effective for carpets, but you can get rid of the paint thinner smell from wood by using baking soda as well.
5. Using Charcoal
Go to your nearest hardware store and grab some activated charcoal. If you then treat these charcoals with heat, they will become more porous resulting in more of the pain vapor going through it and being absorbed. To heat the charcoal, put them into baking pans made of aluminum. Then leave them in your room overnight to get the optimal result.
6. Using Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous Earth is a white powder that resembles chalk. They have a high percentage of silica, which makes them an excellent choice to absorb vapor particles. Pour the powder into some empty cans of coffee or disposable baking pans made of aluminum and leave them in your room overnight.
In the morning, you will find that your furniture isn’t stinking or paint thinner anymore. But make sure to use only edible diatomaceous earth as the conventional ones are extremely harmful to you and your pets.
7. Using Cut Onions
Leave a few pieces of cut onions throughout the room to get rid of the paint smell. Onions contain a chemical which is known as Syn-propanediol-S-oxide that acts to neutralize the aldehydes which is the reason behind the smell of paint thinners. It may sound funny, but it is a very effective way to free your furniture of the paint smell.
8. Using Scented Candles
To fight smell with smell doesn’t necessarily mean that you only have to use things which have… well, not a very good smell. You can use scented candles to drive the paint thinner smell out of your wood as well.
Also, you don’t have to do much work for this either, just light a few candles in the room where you keep your wooden furniture and you will notice there is no smell, not any bad smell anyway, in the room. They are also very cheap and available in various flavors, so you can take your pick.
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How to Get Rid of Paint Thinner Smell on Hands
Not only the furniture, but the smell of paint thinner can stick to your hands as well. You don’t want to run around your house carrying the smell now, do you? So follow any of the methods mentioned below to remove the scent of paint thinner from your hands.
1. Scrubbing hands with Boraxo
Boraxo is a powdered mixture of soap and Borax. Make your hands wet and then apply Boraxo on them. Then rub your hands together vigorously and you will get rid of the smell. All this vigorous friction will create heat, which is very normal.
2. Cleaning Hands with Olive Oil or Baby Oil
Apply Olive oil or baby oil on your hands so that you can remove the paint thinner smell from your hands. Both of these oils are very effective for this purpose. After rubbing your hands, dry them off with a paper towel.
3. Cleaning Up Using GOJO Hand Cleaner
Who doesn’t love GOJO? That goes for both anime fans and people who want their hands to stop smelling like paint thinner. GOJO has a unique orangey smell that gets rid of any acrid smell you may have on your hands. You have to use the hand cleaner as per the manual and dry them off with a paper towel afterward.
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How to Get Rid of Paint Thinner Smell Out of Clothes
While working, you will more often than not, spill paint thinner on your clothes. The following ways are how you can get rid of spilled paint thinner smell from your clothes :
1. Washing with Vanilla Extract
Put your stinky clothes separately into the washing machine and add half a bottle of vanilla extract in the water. The Wash cycle should be run about halfway through and then stopped and left alone for a few hours. After that, start the cycle again after adding a little detergent. This will do the trick.
2. Using White Vinegar
Now we come back to our old friend, white vinegar. Add a couple of tablespoons of white vinegar in warm water and soak the stinky clothes in that for half an hour. Then rinse them in cold water to remove the smell of paint thinner.
Other than these two methods, you can also use Lacquer thinner which you can get from home depot as well as dish soaps.
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Final Thoughts
You will certainly have the smell of paint thinner on the wood after you are done painting, as well as your hands and clothes. But if you know how to get rid of paint thinner smell from wood, clothes, and your hands, this will hardly pose any sort of problems.
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