Saturday, August 8, 2009

Bench project

LIKE NEW AGAIN!





If I were thinking I would have a before and after shot. Instead I have a picture during and after my little home improvement project. Oh well, I am new at this.


A friend gave me this bench. I LOVE it! However, it needed a little TLC. The wood was a bit weathered. A painter friend of ours gave me a little advise. He told me to add 1 cup of bleach to a gallon of water. Then use a scrub brush to clean the wood with that mixture. He said that somehow this seals the pours in the wood, it kills anything growing in the pours. This would return it to a like new condition. After scrubbing with the bleach solution, wash with a power washer or just scrub well with plain water and rinse. Make sure you get all the bleach solution off the wood. Then the wood is ready to sand and stain. He suggested an outdoor stain that protects against the UV rays.


I know I'm not the only one with this delima, so I wanted to share the solution with you. It was a lot easier then I first thought it would be. The color of the wood after the stain was the same as the color when it was wet. I probably should have bleached it one more time before staining, but I still think it turned out great!






This is a picture of the bench in progress. The top part is wet with the bleach solution.

You can see the weather damaged to the wood.

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