$15 Christmas Gift for Daddy

My father is impossible when it comes to figuring out what to give him. Typically, my family resorts to buying licorice or liquor but that gets boring for us (not so much for him). This year, I got lucky. I found an awesome gift that combines two of his favorite things and it only cost me $15!

I would like to introduce you to my dad's new wine rack! He loves his sail boat and he loves drinking red wine. I considered staining or painting the wood, but in the end just went for a bit of cleaning. As you can see in the picture below, the wood was a bit banged and scratched up.

I researched various ways to clean up wood. Martha suggested using olive oil and white vinegar for unsealed wood. Since I already own both ingredients, I decided to try it out before purchasing a more specific cleaner. That's right, I used homemade salad dressing to clean my dad's $15 Christmas gift. I combined 1/4 cup of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of olive oil and shook it up. I used a plain dishcloth to rub the mixture onto the wood and was very pleased with the results. The vinegar gently removes dirt and build up while the olive oil conditions the wood. The after image was taken after the wine rack had totally dried. A lot of the scratches are less obvious, as you can see on the front. The deeper gouges (seen towards the back on the inside of the rack) were not altered much with my salad dressing mixture. I decided I was ok with it because sailing is a weathering and imperfect activity, so the wine rack fit in with the theme. Daddy was very excited to receive his gift and totally didn't mind the rustic appearance of it!

Enjoy this post? We have a lot more gift ideas and I'm always blogging about thrift store finds!