Dear James: Our bedroom has a cedar closet, but the scent is almost gone, and I plan to build a second cedar closet. How can I restore the scent, and do you have any tips for the new one?—Melanie F.
Dear Melanie: Cedar closets are not as common as they used to be, but they are still effective for deterring moths and the resultant holes in woolen clothes. Most people find the cedar scent to be nostalgic and quite pleasant, but the scent can fade over time.
Natural cedar oils evaporating from the millions of microscopic pores in the cedar wood produce the long-lasting cedar scent. I bet your old cedar closet has also lost its reddish color. Most of the surface oils have already evaporated out of the surface over the years, and there also probably is a fine layer of dust on it….