Modern Use for a Vintage Wood Wall Pocket

For some reason, I am drawn to primitive and natural wood. So when I stumbled across this lovely vintage wood wall pocket in Johnson City, Tennessee I had to have it. She has been waiting patiently for her turn at being styled for my home. Today is the day!

I mean, exactly what is it???!! Functionally, I am seeing two dough bowls (actually two halves of two different dough bowls) mounted onto a piece of wood. I assume it’s original purpose was to hold dough in these partial bowls…in the kitchen. I suppose that is correct.

Here are the search results for “dough bowl shelf”.

Not really the same thing. And this is the result for “dough bowl shelf”.

I guess we will just call it something in between…a vintage wood wall pocket.

It’s Thrift Store Decor Team Wednesday so we are sharing our recycles and upcycles. This beauty fits right in. I won’t be using this for my dough. But I will be be repurposing it in my home.

shopatblu thrift store decor team time purple

Be sure to check out all of the team projects at the end of this post. We have some fantastic projects for you this month.

The Beauty of Wood

Whenever possible, I do love to leave beautiful vintage wood items in their natural state. So I didn’t want to paint this. It’s a lovely finish so I will just be feeding the wood and reviving the original look.

shopatblu vintage wood wall pocket upcycle

She’s in fabulous shape so I will just lightly sand a few of the mars and then feed the wood and shine her up.

Every Vintage Wood Wall Pocket Needs a Bath

Every revamp project piece needs a good bath. I cleaned the unit with warm soapy water. Then I grabbed very fine sandpaper to lightly sand the surface mars, which were just rub spots.

I just lightly sanded away the marks which were all surface scrapes and mars.

After sanding, she needed another bath to remove the dust particles from the sanding process. I wiped the entire piece again with warm soapy water.

Most of the marks had come right off!

Next, it was time to feed the wood. Hemp oil keeps the wood healthy and beautiful. And, it is all natural. The hemp oil will fill those sanding marks right in!

I applied a generous coat to the entire wall unit with a clean cotton cloth.

You can instantly see how the hemp oil refreshes the wood. The wood is immediately richer and brighter as it soaks in the hemp oil.

I let the wood absorb the oil for a few hours. Then I wiped off the excess and used a cotton rag to buff the surface.

Isn’t she beautiful?

My intention was always to hang this beautiful vintage wood wall pocket on the wall and fill her with lovely plants. Perfect, right??

A Few Other Tribute to Wood Projects

Here are a few past projects that focused on wood restoration.

The Blue Building Anitques Shopatblu antique cutting board revived — Mom’s Cutting Board

shopatblu-upcycled-thrift-store-desk — Pop’s Desk

the blue building antiques shop at blu antique two chests refresh — Antique Mantle Restoration

Finding Inserts to Fit the Bowls

A while back, I found these plastic containers at the thrift store.

I knew they would be perfect to set inside the bowls as planters.

There were a few sizes.

The price sure was right!

The only problem was that they were not form fitted to the bowls so they did not sit flush and wiggled around a bit.

The bottoms were flat. I was worried that water might spill from the planters. So I needed to secure them.

I grabbed some Great Stuff and used that to make the containers fit snugly into the bowls.

I did line the wood bowls with plastic wrap because I wasn’t sure if the Great Foam would damage the wood as it is a petroleum based product.

It didn’t damage the wood, but it also didn’t dry very well. the product needs air to completely dry, which makes sense. The top and sides had hardened but not the section under the bowl.