Back in March I shared a peek of my son’s pallet wall. Then in April I shared his whole room and you got to see how the pallet wall looked with all the other features in his bedroom. How about today we finally talk a little about making a pallet accent wall, okie dokie?
making your own diy pallet wall
procuring your pallet wood
Through my experience I have come to the conclusion that most people that obtain wood pallets, probably do so illegally. Gasp! It’s not as easy as I would have thought to find pallet wood to reuse. The fact is, most businesses send their pallets back to whichever company sent them in the first place. That means that the pallets are the property of that company. So if you take them you’re stealing someone else’s property. For example, I saw many Coca Cola and Pepsi pallets that were stamped with the company name and a price (usually $15.00). Don’t take those. But don’t despair, because there are still several places where you can (legitimately) get your hands on some pallets, you’ve just got to keep your eyes open and know what to look for.
tips:
- Go for a drive, drive in the alleyways behind businesses, and check out their dumpsters. I found that if pallets were damaged, or thrown carelessly by their dumpsters, then they were typically fair game.
- Steer away from painted pallets or pallets with brand names on them. In my experience, these are pallets that for sure are being sent back to their original company to be reloaded and reused.
- Search for wood pallets in Craigslist. Steer away from posts that are asking to be paid for the pallets. Trust me, keep looking and you’ll find someone who is giving some away. In the 1 1/2 weeks I searched my local Craigslist for free wood pallets, I was able to find two listings. One from a business that simply gave you the address and said you could come any time and take what you wanted. Another from an individual who had three pallets you could pick up form his house. Act fast though, you’re not the only one who is looking for pallets.
- Look in unexpected places. Taking a short cut one day I drove through my local industrial park and saw a few buildings with pallets by their dumpsters. Score! I never would have thought to look there had I not been driving by.
- You’ll likely have more success with small business. The larger chain stores, such as Lowe’s, Kmart, or Les Schwab Tires (all actual businesses I asked) are more likely to be returning their pallets. Smaller businesses often are just throwing them away.
- When in doubt, ask. You can call a business from the beginning and see if they have wood pallets you can get. You can also drive around and when you see pallets stacked up, go in and ask if you can have some.
prepping your pallet wood
Breaking pallets apart is by far the most annoying part of a pallet wood project. I know several people online talk about using a reciprocating tool for cutting through the nails. I don’t have one of these and I didn’t really want all those nails in my boards anyway. So for the most part I was simply using my hammer and prying them apart; pounding on the back of boards sometimes had good results as well. Sometimes the pallet wood was so dry and brittle that it would just start cracking. In those cases I used my jigsaw to cut along the edges. This made some boards really short. However, I was able to use them on ends and was much faster than trying to save old, dry wood from splitting.
If you don’t know for sure that your pallet wood in untreated, you’ll want to make sure you seal it. Most of my wood I painted or stained a variety of finishes. The ones I left natural I treated with some non-toxic Zinnser shellac. I only used leftover paint and stain so this part of the project was cheap. I only had to buy the shellac.
prepping your wall
It might help you to lay out all your pallet wood ahead of time on the ground. Firstly, if you’re doing a variety of finishes then you can make sure that you have things spaced out well. Secondly, the widths of pallets are going to vary and it really helps to match up widths ahead of time. I took a page from the Bowers and put plywood up first, well, the hubby did most of that part. We simply screwed the plywood into the studs on the wall. Genius idea and they have a great tutorial so you should check it out. Once that was done I could just nail the boards up wherever I wanted. Bonus that you don’t have to worry about finding a stud.
the finishing touches
My decision to not take the pallet wood all the way to the ceiling started out because I didn’t want to have to find any more pallets or break them apart. I. Was. Done. But as I was putting my wall up and once the room came together, I am so glad I did the wall like that. I love the way it looks and I love the little ledge that we can put things on. It’s just 2×3 with a lip cut into the bottom so it fit snugly over the pallets boards, and then a grove cut into the top with a table saw to create a place to hold pictures. My daddy did it for me when he was here working on a million other projects. I love that guy.
16 Responses to diy pallet wall tips for success at home
beautiful! Now I want one :). Can you tell me how big your space was and how many pallets you used? There is a local brewery with pallets to give away, might be a good time to snag some and beg my hubby to attempt this project!
The wall is 13 feet across (of course I picked the longest wall in either of my kiddo's rooms to do this to!) and we went 6 feet high.
Free pallets? Lucky! Grab more than you think you'll need because you can always find something else to do with them; or graciously give them to a friend who needs some 🙂 I think I used about 6, plus some odd pieces for the end, and we supplemented with three 1×6 pine boards from Home Depot (the 6 foot length ones I believe). Hope that helps!
Your pallet wall is so charming. And as someone who used to work with freight, thanks for the tips on how to find legitimate pallets to use. Thanks for sharing at Inspire Us Thursday on Organized 31.
Wow! That looks awesome. How cool, can't wait to show my husband.
Interesting! I have been thinking about doing something like this for awhile! Glad you beat me to it and I have something to go on instead of winging it!
xoxo
The Accidental Mama
http://theaccidentalmama.com
This is still one of my favorite things in my house. I just love to look at it. 🙂
This is so awesome – I love it! Thanks for sharing – maybe another project to add to my list 😉 we could really use a headboard makeover!! Great sight!!
Thanks so much for sharing this at our Feature Friday Linky Party!! I'm still looking for a place to do this in my house!
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Crystal for Penny Love Projects
That's awesome!!! I love it! I love the look of pallet walls!
I LOVE it! You did a great job. I Definitely want to copy this.
This project turned out great and I can picture this design concept growing with your child. Good job Justine! You should put this on Hometalk!
Thanks so much Jess! So sweet of you. 🙂
Thanks so much Natalie! Do it, you'll love it! 🙂
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