Thursday 14 March 2013

Musty Books - a How To

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I love books but I dislike the smells that sometimes come with them. I'm not talking about that nice smell that old books have, just the musty, damp, ikky smell you sometimes come to sniffing when you turn their crusty pages. But I'm not one to let the damp musty smell of a book stop me from purchasing it especially if I can try and get rid of it. I remember buying a copy of Dr. Zhirago which smelt of turps from a box outside a house in Ravenscar and leaving it in the greenhouse the entire summer to try and get rid of the smell, only for the book to dry out too much that the pages fell apart from the binding. At least I tried.

But with this background and love for a random experiments (you might remember my experiment with nail whiting and denture tables and lemon juice) after purchasing a tonne of 1970's cookbooks from what we'd call a damp house in Walled Lake that hasn't been opened to air for a while I knew I had to try and rid them of the smell before I could do anything with them. So aside from leaving them by an open window, google searches suggested using coffee granules and cat litter (not together mind you) to try and decrease the presence of the musty smell. So I did. You basically pour your substance into a tub and then place into a larger container say an airtight box or zip bag and leave for as long as you can, even a good couple of days can do the trick. Or so they say.

And the results were interesting, granted the open air idea would be ideal - if you have the time and the place to leave old books to the open air. Our grumpy landlords ban you having anything on the windowsill so I have to be careful about leaving items on there. Surprising coffee granules were the outright winner - who knew!

PS - with all the forthcoming changes to GFC you can also follow LOTS on Bloglovin - it's the future and all.

8 comments:

  1. This is such a great tutorial, I love to buy old books at second hand stores (they are the perfect functional display pieces) but the old musty smell is a huge turn off. Thank you!

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    1. You're welcome if it saves a book or three in the process it's worth me blogging about!

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  2. old books are the best- i love the smell of ones from bookshops :) musty is not so great though!
    Rosie xo
    A Pocketful of Rosie

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    1. Yeah the smell and the crinkle sound when you turn their pages is a delight every time!

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  3. I kinda like the smell of old books. I have a few that my husband bought from his college library. Those had no musty smell to them since they were stored properly.

    It's weird your landlords don't allow things on windowsills. Is it a liability issue?

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    1. I have no idea why because the old landlords had no issues with it, they are pains most of the time normally so I haven't looked into it cuz hopefully we'll be moving out. Big company landlords took over our nice friendly little one. Rent goes up service goes down. Same old story.

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  4. What changes to GFC, what have I missed? This is useful to know, I do love an old book. X

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  5. Hey most awesome practical blog ever. I'm following you...now. I have some many old books :)

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