Working out of a home office means you can avoid long commutes to an office building and working all day with people who can generally annoy you.  However, having a home office also means you can't just call the maintenance department to come and fix things when something goes wrong or gets broken – like when you put a heavy sharp object on your desk that causes a deep scratch in the surface of the wood top. As with the other things around your house, you'll have to fix the scratch yourself, unless you want to pay out of your own pocket to have someone come in and remove the scratches for you. Here is how you can remove deep scratches on the top of your wood desk.

Stain the Crack

The first thing you should do is stain the crack to match as closely as you can the color of the surface of the desktop. Use a small narrow-pointed paint brush to apply the stain into the crack. You don't want to get the stain onto the polyurethane coating that was applied previously to protect the original stain and desktop. The stain won't dry properly and will become sticky and tacky. Wipe off any excess stain with a clean cloth. Be careful not to wipe down into the scratches and remove the stain you just placed inside them. If you do wipe too much stain out of the scratches, just apply more stain and carefully wipe the excess stain off the desktop one more time.

Apply Polyurethane Finish

There will still be grooves in the wood caused by the scratches after you have applied the stain. You need to fill up the grooves with polyurethane. Take a wooden match stick, like the ones used to light the pilot lights on furnaces, and dip the wood end of the match into a container of polyurethane. Place the wooden end of the match stick directly over the scratches. Let the polyurethane drip off of the match stick and into the grooves of the scratches. 

The polyurethane will normally leave raised ridges over the scratches after it dries. Sand the ridges down with a sanding block and a fine grade sanding paper. You should then lightly sand the entire desktop and apply a thin coating of polyurethane on it to restore the glossy uniform appearance. Apply the additional polyurethane by pouring it onto a clean rag. Use the rag to spread a thin layer of polyurethane over the desktop. Allow the polyurethane to dry before putting your office items back onto the top of your desk.

If your desk is looking a little worse for wear and you just don't have the time to completely refinish it, consider looking into local office furniture suppliers for a replacement desk.

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