Make a Swing Seat From Pallets

8 Materials
$20
1 Day
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The children have outgrown the play equipment we inherited when we moved into our home. So my husband has dismantled the play equipment for the wood and repurposed it. The children’s request for the redesign is a fire pit and some form of swing seat.


This swing seat is made with wooden poles to form the base to hang the seat from. You will need four poles for the legs.

To make the base cut poles to 7’10”, or taller if your wood allows. Our top piece measures 93”.


Longer legs would allow you to set them deeper in the ground, or to have a higher swing frame.

Drill fully through the poles 15” from one end.

Place a threaded rod through two of the poles and secure loosely with two washers and nuts.

Find a line to work with, place the join on the line, then place the kegs equa distance either side of the line.

Place any piece of wood across up from the base and secure with screws. This is purely to hold the frame together, and act as a guide when digging the holes for the legs. Do this for both sides.

Dig holes and place your legs in position. Temporarily place crosspiece on top and check with a spirit level.

Pour in cement post mix, following the instructions.

Top the hole up with soil.


Next place a fifth pole across the top and secure with two bolts each side. The bolts go through the top pole and one side pole, repeat with top pole and second side pole. You may need to drill through the poles one at a time.

Now it’s time to make the swing from an old pallet. Using a jigsaw cut the pallet by using the central support plank as a guide. This leaves you with one section for the seat which is a fully supported piece of pallet just over half the size of the pallet, and another section of pallet for the backrest.

The backrest piece of the pallet will be lacking support so you need to add a replacement for the cross support you used as a guide for the cut. 

Add blocks of wood between the front and back panels of the pallet for the backrest so that this is sturdy.


Now its time to join the two pieces together at whatever angle you would prefer between seat and backrest. We did this in 2 ways. Firstly we used bolts and screws to attach the backrest to the seat, screwing the newly added blocks of wood attached to the backrest, to the seat. Secondly, we attached side supports from the front of the seat, to the top of the backrest.

Lastly it’s time to hang the pallet seat onto the swing seat structure. We have used the old ropes from a former swing seat combined with straps we bought online, meant for hanging swings from a tree.


Two pieces of wood 46″long (1 3/4″x3/4″) were placed through the pallet seat, one through the seat itself and one through the backrest. You do not need to screw these pieces of wood onto the pallet itself until you have assembled the swing and tested it swings correctly. This means you can adjust the position of these supports and/or your rope as required. We then bolted on a gym hook to the end of each support, to hook the ropes on.

The ropes from the old swing were attached to the corded tree swing fittings using carabiners. You need to make sure you purchase tree swing fixings, carabiners and gym hooks that can take the weight you intend to put onto the swing!

Lastly we painted the pallet seat with some external wood paint, and bought a cushion for pallet swing seats.


The flower bed in front of the DIY pallet seat has been sown with wildflowers to encourage insects, birds, bees, and butterflies.


Do check out our fabulous bench seat also made from the former play equipment.

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  3 questions
  • Dawn Dawn on Jun 30, 2020

    Where did you get the tree straps and how much were they ?

  • Fly Fly on Jul 04, 2020

    Hi there,


    How much weight would this support?

  • Emily Kello Emily Kello on Jul 05, 2020

    How much would it cost for you come out to my house and build me one.... Lol I sure love your idea but don't think I could put that together by myself.... About how long did it take you to do with that A day or two?? I live in Indiana so if you're close let me know I'll pay 🤑🤑you to build it ‼️👌

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  • Lin24982333 Lin24982333 on Jun 26, 2022

    What a great idea to turn a children swing set into a adults swing. Genius idea . Your husband did a wonderful job! 👍🏻

  • Gel75248280 Gel75248280 on Jan 02, 2023

    Can a person use the frame from a metal swing set to make this

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