Markers as a Home Improvement Tool

One sign of the fact that we are now far from new homeowners is that things we replaced are already starting to look old or damaged. One example - the hinge of a toddler step stool managed to scrape away stain (and some wood) from our relatively new bathroom cabinets.

Fancy markers to the rescue! This kit, found by my mom who always finds clever gadgets and gizmos, claimed to fix chips and scrapes in wood with wood-colored markers. I don't think the ink is anything special but it is basically a nice set of markers in various shades of brown.

 Here it is, with one or two rounds of the darkest brown:

And here it is again, with another round of brown and black the following, wiped and blended a bit together:

Is it invisible? Not at all. The wood itself got scraped away so without some really dramatic fix with wood filler, the slash will still be there. And the markers can't quite replicate the same level of glossiness. But from standing (or sitting - it is a bathroom after all) eye level, it's barely there unless you look for it, so at least I'm not haunted by that step stool each and every time I use the bathroom.