Bread Box Charging Station DIY Tutorial

Charging stations are a great way to keep all your cords in one spot and out of sight! This charging station DIY is a simple project made from a thrifted bread box and the best part is that your charging station ends up looking like decor!

This post was originally published on April 8, 2017 and has since been updated to include clearer, more concise step-by-step instructions.

If you know me very well at all you know one of my biggest pet peeves is cords being visible… I just can’t stand to look at them!

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Not only does this bread box hide all the charging cords, but it also gives us somewhere to set our phones while we’re at home (in the middle of the house so we can still hear them if we get a call) and they don’t distract us from family time!

Chris (my husband, for those of you new to my adventures) and I had multiple discussions about where this charging station would end up being installed…

I wanted it in the built-in hutch at the center of our home but there wasn’t an outlet there for plugging into. He wanted it on the kitchen counter but it just took up too much space!

So in the end, he installed a new outlet inside my built-in hutch for us to plug the charging station into. He’s the best. 🙂

This project was actually really simple and fun!

At any rate, I hope you all enjoy this tutorial and give it a whirl! My bread box came from Goodwill for like $5 – can’t beat a thrifted upcycle!!

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Charging Station DIY out of a Bread Box

For a printable copy of the materials and instructions, scroll down.

Materials Needed:

• Wooden Bread Box
• 1″ x 12″ Common Board
• Colored Paint (I chose the same grey as our kitchen base cabinets because I had some left and it saved on cost!)
• White Paint
• Wood Stain
• Wood Filler
• Contact Paper (My floral print is actually a shelf liner from The Dollar Tree!)

Tools Needed:

• 2″ Tapered Paintbrush
• Small Craft Paintbrush
• Letter Stencils
• Sand Paper
• Extension Cord
• Paper & Pencil

Instructions for Charging Station DIY

Step 1: Clean & Sand

Start by cleaning and sanding your bread box to prepare for paint. I just wiped it down with a baby wipe and then sanded all the surfaces with some medium grit sandpaper.

Step 2: Paint

Next, paint the entire thing (minus the inside of the accordion rolling section since we’ll cover that later) with your colored paint.

I only did one heavy coat, but if your paint color is lighter you may need two coats to cover it well.

 After that paint dries, the next step is to add some white paint to make it look worn.

To do this, I took a dry paintbrush, barely dipped the ends in my white paint (I mean, BARELY) and then did some light strokes across the box in a random pattern. Make sure you go the direction of the wood grain and do nice long strokes.

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Step 3: Stain

Now you want to cover the entire box with stain.

This gives it an aged color and makes it look more antique!

I used Early American from Minwax and gave it a light coat of stain rather than a thick coat that you wipe off. If you prefer a darker coloring, you can leave the stain on longer or do a thicker coat. Here’s my attempt at getting a close-up picture of the coloring…

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Step 4: Lettering

Next you want to paint the “BREAD” lettering on the front of your box.

I used my Cricut machine to cut out the letters and then used that as a stencil, but you could easily free-hand it or use a regular store-bought stencil too.

Center the lettering on your door and trace it onto the box with a pencil.

Next, fill in with white paint using your small craft paintbrush.

 Let the paint sit for a few hours until it’s totally dry and then sand it again with your sand paper.

Just rough up the paint a bit to give it that final worn feel. I sanded a bit extra on some of the edges where there might be natural wear and tear from use. Yay, you’ve completed the painting portion!

Step 5: Contact Paper

Next up is making the inside a pretty charging station. 🙂 I started by putting a floral shelf-liner or contact paper on the back of the rolling door.

Step 6: Charging Platform

Then, I drilled a 1″ hole in the side of the box to allow the extension cord to come out.

Since I didn’t want to see any of the cords, my husband built me a little raised floor board for inside the box using a 1″ x 12″ board trimmed to size, painted to match the box, with four feet to prop it up and notches in the front for the cords to thread through.

This allowed for the extension cord and all the other plugs to be hidden under the floor and just the plug for each of the cords to sit up inside the visible part of the box.

And that’s it! Simple, right? Both cute and functional! I love how our charging station DIY looks in our built-in hutch. 🙂

I’m always looking for new and creative ways to hide cords – have any tried any other charging station DIY projects?

As promised, here are your printable instructions:

And I love your feedback, so feel free to leave a comment below or let me know if you have any questions about this charging station DIY project.

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