Renovating the Cavendish

As many of you know, I recently became the owner of two Cavendishes. The first to arrive was the older, more used one, and I decided that if the other one was in better nick, I would move into that and renovate the more used one.

The Cavendish was a little tired and ‘lived in’ looking. More Rebus than Morse. It didn’t have any major dings but there were some marks that looked like it had had a prolonged encounter with a spiral-bound notebook at some point. There were a few marks and the leather was a bit grubby but nothing fundamentally wrong.

A bit tired but fundamentally sound...

With the flash, the spiral-binding marks are clearer

The Cavendish opened out

After reading about various renovations and looking online, I found some “Lord Sheraton’s Leather Balsam” which had beeswax and almond oil etc in it. That buffed it up very nicely, but didn’t do anything about the marks from the spiral binding. I had earlier read Vanjilla’s post about using Nivea (yes, I wondered if she was barking mad too, but she’s not!). I didn’t have quite the same kind of Nivea but I did have some intensive moisturising hand-cream by them. I thought I would give it a shot.

tools of the trade! The large white smear is the intensive treatment of the spiral-binding marks

Well, it worked! The indentations are almost 100% gone – just the two deepest are slightly visible.

shiny, buffed front cover

what a difference!

opened out again

The filofax will always look second-hand and never ‘as new’ despite Lord Sheraton and Nivea’s best efforts, but it looks a darn sight better than it did!