My coffee table had a long white scratch down the middle, and I was ready to sand and refinish the whole thing. A friend handed me a walnut from a bowl of snacks and told me to rub it on the scratch. I thought she was joking. She was not.

Why a walnut works

Walnuts are full of natural oils. Those oils soak into the scratch and darken the exposed raw wood, so the scratch blends into the surrounding finish. It works best on light scratches on medium to dark wood.

How to do it

1. Crack a walnut and use the meat, not the shell.
2. Rub the walnut across the scratch, following the grain.
3. Let it sit for a few minutes, then buff with a soft cloth.

The scratch did not vanish completely, but it went from an obvious white gash to a faint line you have to hunt for. For a quick fix, that is about as good as it gets.

When to skip it

Deep scratches that go through the finish into bare wood need a proper touch-up pen or wax stick. But for surface scuffs and light scratches, the walnut trick is free and takes thirty seconds.

I keep a couple of walnuts in the drawer now, right next to the coasters I should have been using all along.