Wood Bleached Potato Box Makeover

I am so excit­ed about this wood bleached pota­to box makeover! This start­ed as a bit of an exper­i­ment a cou­ple weeks ago when I got this crazy idea to bleach a table top. Before I took the plunge off the deep end I want­ed to test the process on a small­er project to see how I liked the results.

If you would like to try this tech­nique on a project of your own grab these supplies.

Supplies for A Wood Bleach Project

• Bleach
• Rag
• Orbital Sander
• 80 grit sandpaper
• Teak Oil

In comes the old, ugly tater box. I got this as a birth­day gift from my mom. She knew I was look­ing for one to add to my farm­house kitchen, and I was so excit­ed to get my hands on this thing! 

A good sand­ing and this tater box is already look­ing so much better! 

Check out the sped up sand­ing and bleach­ing process on FACEBOOK

The process itself is so sim­ple. You apply liq­uid bleach, the same kind you use for clean­ing or laun­dry, with a rag. Not too much where it is sat­u­rat­ed but just enough to wet the sur­face of the wood.

After apply­ing the bleach, allow the bleach to sit on the wood until dry to the touch. The wood with grad­u­al­ly light­en as it dries. Repeat the process as many times as you want for a lighter effect. 

As of right now, this is as far as I have come with the project. I reassem­bled using the orig­i­nal hard­ware and plan to seal it with teak oil to fin­ish. I will be shar­ing pic­tures styled in my kitchen very soon! 

Ps…this look was after about 20 min­utes of bleach sit­ting on the surface. 

Stay tuned for the final reveal of the wood bleached pota­to box makeover!

This is the final result after about 48 hours of dry time. I am absolute­ly in love with the old world feel this piece now has. Some­times all you need to do is strip away the gunk accu­mu­lat­ed over the years and let the wood do the talking! 

To address the con­cerns about smell, there is ZERO smell com­ing from this piece. The amount of bleach that made con­tact with the sur­face was min­i­mal and it could not be smelled after is dried. I plan to store food in here once it has received a good oil­ing with beeswax or min­er­al oil.