Five cures for your home’s holiday hangovers

The holidays are over and your guests are gone, but how can you fix the small dents and dings the holidays left behind? Rosemary Ellis, editor-in-chief of “Good Housekeeping” magazine, offers quick cures for five holiday hangovers:

1. A festive toast nicked your best stemware.

Quick cure:

• The Chef’s Choice Crystal Crafter from Edge Craft can easily make dings disappear on crystal, porcelain or ceramics.
  
• Gently rub the tool’s steel wand, which is coated in diamond abrasives, over the damaged area. In GHRI tests, the sander smoothed nicks with a light buffing.
  
• Cost: $20

2. Pinning up garlands, greeting cards and other holiday decorations turned your wall into Swiss cheese.

Quick cure:

• Instead of breaking out the tub of spackle, try Erase-A-Hole from Elite Products. It comes in a stick applicator that’s as simple to use as your deodorant.
  
• Just twist up the paste, rub in a circle over the holes and use a damp cloth to wipe away excess.
  
• It dries quickly and you can paint over all the spots immediately without priming.
  
• Cost: $7

3. Aunt Mary always forgets to use a coaster and this holiday she left a red wine stain on the marble countertop.

Quick cure:

• Saturate white paper towels with hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is a mild bleach that removes stains from marble.
  
• Wipe the stained area with distilled water and place the wet-towel poultice on top. Cover the poultice with plastic wrap and seal the edges with any kind of tape.
  
• After 24 hours, remove the plastic wrap and allow the poultice to completely dry. As a poultice dries, it pulls the stain out of the marble, so don’t skimp on the time — this is the step that actually teases out the stain.
  
• Remove towels, rinse marble with distilled water and buff. You may need to repeat if the stain isn’t completely gone

4. The cleaning of the roasting pans and cookie sheets has left your stainless-steel sink looking dull.

Quick cure:

• Get the gleam back with the stainless-steel sink and cookware scratch remover kit from Siege Chemical. The kit comes with a sponge, gloves, polish and three double-sided refurbishing pads. The six surfaces of the refurbishing pads range in roughness from extra-fine (for light marks) to very coarse (for deeper damage).
  
• Wet a pad and rub in the direction of the sink’s grain. Afterward, polish and shine but don’t rub in circles because you’ll make things worse.
  
• Cost: $16

5. Your wood furniture managed to ring in the new year with white circles from drippy glasses and hot serving dishes.

Quick cure:

• Banishing the blemishes that occur when moisture is trapped under the finish used to be a challenge, but now it’s a breeze with the Furniture Stain Remover Cloth from Guardsman — and it’s cheaper than replacing the furniture.
  
• The reusable wipe softens the surface slightly to release any trapped moisture and has oils to blend the finish.
  
• Simply rub the cloth over the ring in the direction of the wood’s grain and wipe it again with a regular clean cloth.
  
• Cost: $3

For more information or tips, visit “Good Housekeeping” magazine's Web site.  

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