In designing your home, choosing the new furniture can be exhausting and expensive. On the one hand, you have to make sure that the furniture pieces fit your given space and match each other; and on the other hand, you have to stay within your price range. Buying old furniture and repurposing it can also be challenging if you don’t have the right materials and you might still end up having a chaotic home, that looks nothing close to comfortable.
An obvious choice for most DIY-ers would be to make their own furniture. If you like a furniture piece and you don’t have the budget or space for it, you should know you can recreate it by using scrap materials (that cost close to nothing) or you can follow cool DIY designs and make great furniture pieces from scratch.
One of the latest trends in DIY in home design is coming from Europe and is taking more and more DIY-ers along. It is cheap, inexpensive even, fun and versatile. I am talking about making wood pallets furniture, one of the great ways to upcycle and to give your home a fresh new look. For bigger more interesting projects you may need best hammer drill, chainsaws and more, however, it’s not necessary for most projects.
Why choose wood pallets
Versatility
If you are into DIY, you will find that wood pallets can be one of the best materials to use in your creative endeavors. They can turn into anything with minimal skills or efforts. You can disassemble them into individual boards and incorporate those into any projects, or keep them as they are and match them together into simple designs like coffee tables, couches, and even beds.
Wood pallets are pleasant looking, aged- looking, and sturdy and by choosing the right accessories, color, textures, and patterns you can get either a rustic, clean look or a modern, even elegant look. Most wood pallets are made of pine, but you might also find wood pallets made of oak or maple.
Cheap and easy to find
They are also free or very inexpensive since you will mostly find them discarded while still being in good shape.
You can find wood pallets near garden supply stores, construction sites, hardware and home improvement stores, or at pallet recyclers or even on craigslist.
Easy to use and to disassemble
You can use the wood pallets as they are and match them into the furniture design you like or you can disassemble them and use the boards however you like.
You can disassemble them carefully, without breaking the boards, by using giant clawhammer and getting the boards out individually. Alternatively, you can try cutting the wood with a saw, or by cutting the nails with a metal saw. However, if you cut the wood, you will have shorter boards and if you cut the nails, the nail heads will remain on the boards but you can still use them like that.
10 Great Pallet Furniture Ideas
Chosen below are furniture ideas that may give your home either a modern or a rustic look. Don’t forget you can also combine the two styles into your own original style by keeping a balance between colors, patterns, and textures.
In the living room
One of the easiest ways to create a couch from wood pallets is to combine two pallets together for the seat by using nails or screws, adding a back made of two other pallets and two sides with one pallet each. You can adjust the width and the length if you like and you can add wheels if you want to be able to move the couch easily. After this add your favorite cushions and there you have it-, your own pallet couch.
You can keep it simple or you can add a lounge or keep only one side.
Add to it a simple, polished coffee table and you have a great duo that is sure to look cozy and welcoming.
Refresh your kitchen
You can also give your kitchen a wood pallet island that is sure to last through the years by piling several pallets, nailing them and topping it off with a nice painted board. You can keep it like that or you can add some drawers for extra usability.
Another great way to give your kitchen a new look while still looking into the practical side is to make a cabinet. You will need several boards of different sizes, which you will nail together into a simple shape, like the one below, or a more complicated shape, with more shelves or even drawers. You can also make doors to close the shelves or you can keep it simple like this design that has hooks that are useful for hanging cups and other kitchenware.
Wall art
Some pallets have interesting wood boards, they are either made of high-quality woods or have an interesting gradient or pattern, making them perfect for art projects.
If you are particularly handy with a brush in your hand, you might be happy to find that you can use pallets to create your own wall art. You can paint the boards individually and then combine them on a frame if you are looking to create something more contemporary. You can also start by making the frame and then combine the boards to create a canvas, onto which you can start painting a wholesome image.
If you are lucky to find some pallets with interesting gradient or just several boards of different colors, you can combine them into a geometrical wall art.
Below you have several ideas for wall art projects.
Sturdy beds and happy beds
You can also create your own king size bed either by combining some pallets to create a box spring and then adding a headboard that can be either from pallet boards nailed into a frame or from some other repurposed wood parts. You can also make this project more complicated by creating a box spring from disassembled boards and create a sturdy and beautiful bed frame that is sure to be a statement piece in your bedroom for many years to come. I love the wood color in this bed frame; it’s so warm and classic.
Moving into the children’s room, you are sure to find a furniture piece you can make out of pallet here. You can create a small bed or a crib or get even craftier and create a bed with storage room so you will save up some space in the kid’s room and get it more organized. Just make sure you get clean wood, that wasn’t treated with harsh chemicals. Also be careful to hide the nail points.
Trendy shelves
Shelves store things, but they don’t need to be plain and boring, as they can also play an important role in the design of the house. You can either take out some boxes from the pallet structure or glue them together into an interesting design or you can create your new shelf by cutting individual boards and gluing them together into a shape that fits with the room’s décor.
In the yard
Your yard can be your relaxing oasis after a tiring day at work. You can make your backyard beautiful by adding some outside wood pallet furniture to the landscape. Out of pallet wood, you can make planters, sofas, shelves, coffee tables, patios. You name it.
Sofas are perfect for relaxing while you watch your children play in the backyard. You can make a simple sofa by cutting the pallets into two. You can use the first half for the seating and the other half for the back. Be careful to remove any board that doesn’t fit. For the legs, you can use strong pallet parts and take out some boards to make room for the seating. One final step would be to apply varnish to protect the wood from the elements. Add the most comfortable cushions and you will have a stylish sofa.
Final words
Wood pallet furniture is one of the most recent trends in home and interior design. Designers and DIY-ers have started using it for anything from beds to planters, shelves and even for interesting wall art. Wood pallets are cheap, easy to disassemble and great for creating many practical, sturdy designs.
Versatility aside, the wood has the property of looking both fresh and aged and appeals to the eye. Sometimes you can even find interesting gradients that you can incorporate into art pieces.
It is also a great way to upcycle so we think the trend is here to stay.
I think this is a very cheap and more common way to build furniture, I see a lot of advantages and very few down sides.
Firewood for making coal to heat up hardwoods.