Dresser Makeover - Experimenting with bleach.

Remember this little chest of drawers from the Friday findings?  Well, it got a make over, the goal was to update the look for a fresh clean natural finish.  Read on to find out how!

My first move was to sand off the varnish/stain and get back to clean wood.  I used a coarse 100 grit paper for the bulk of the work, then followed up with a fine 240 grit paper, now the surface feels so smooth and perfect!

Naturally I had some help...

Sanded and ready for phase two.

I'd read a few articles about lightening wood with chlorine bleach, and since I wanted to test out ways to lighten the pine floors at the cottage, this pine dresser seemed like the perfect opportunity.

 I tested the 'method'.  Admittedly, I just brushed bleach onto the back of a drawer and timed it to see how long the bleach needed to sit, no real technique there.  I had originally planned to stop the bleach with vinegar and was in the process of brushing vinegar on during the test process when I realized that is basically how you create deadly chlorine gas...  So glad I didn't just pour the stuff on.  I think I had confused myself by reading too many bleach diy posts with differing methods.

Do not mix bleach and vinegar people.

I decided that five minutes soak time, with a reapplication midway, gave the color I was looking for (see the swatch on the left.)  I proceeded to 'paint' the whole dresser with bleach and neutralized it with lots of water, then it sat for a few days to dry.

Once dry I did a quick sand again with a fine grit paper as the bleach had raised the surface grain.  I wiped it down carefully with tack cloth and tested out a water based Polyacrylic finishing coat.  

Chosen so as not to affect the bleached out color too much.  Water-based finishes don't yellow in the same way that oil based ones do and the whole point was to move away from that original orangey pine look.

I did forget to take into account how the poly finish would darken the bleached wood slightly, as though it was wet.  In the above photo the left side has wet poly, the right side is the bare bleached wood.  I ended up doing 3 coats of this great, clear, quick-drying, poly-acrylic, sanding lightly in-between each coat.

The surface is now clear and silky smooth, I'm loving the clean natural look, the whiteness of the bare bleached wood doesn't really shine through, but perhaps it will keep the wood from getting too yellow with age.

I used these vintage glass knobs, found in Dad's garage, after cleaning them so they are crystal clear.  The total cost of this project was about $15 for the can of poly, which I barely made a dent in, and my time.  Time spent outside in the sunshine.

My helper again, stealing credit in the finished project photo.

I love it the way it came out and I learned one method I do not want to use on the cottage floors.  All the rinsing with water to stop the bleach would be impossible on in-situ floorboards.

- Nicole