DIY Pallet Furniture
by Grace
4 Materials
One of my favorite things about our house is the fenced in back yard and patio with a carport roof above. My husband and I spend many evenings sitting outside on our patio enjoying the Texas weather, before it gets too hot. We love to entertain, and I had bought a little patio seating set last year but it only seats 4 and most times we have more people over then that. That’s where this project was birthed from and here is how I did it.
What you will need for this project is some creativity, a measuring tape, sandpaper possibly paint, and of course pallets. My husband and I found our pallets on Craigstlist from a Coors light plant that ordered the wrong size and were trying to get rid of them. We got two truck loads of them almost brand new for $20. My husband has used some for kindling and to stack his firewood on. I used 15 of them for this project and we still have quite a few left for other projects.
The first thing you will need to do is measure your pallets and figure out if you will need to cut them or if you like the size already. My pallets measured 36″x45″ 36″ was still a bit wide for trying to sit on so we decided to cut them in half.
To cut in half I used a regular handsaw and cut down the middle to the side of the middle beam. You have to cut both sides. this is not hard. I did it to all 15 pallets in about an hour. Here is what it looked like. The part I am going to use is the part on the left. It now measures 36″x24″ I cut several pallets like this. I knew I needed 5 across but I didn’t know how many I would need to stack to get the height for the seat that I wanted.
So I started stacking and I pulled up my patio chair to compare. I decided that three high was just right. So now I knew I needed 15 whew…time to get busy.
Now to make the backs to them. This is one of the leftover pieces from the pallets I cut earlier.
I just pulled the backing boards right off. If you do it right it should take off the top and second boards. This is what it should look like coming off.
TaDa
If your benches are going to be against a wall, simply prop it up against it. The blocks left on the back will help keep it stable.
As you can see I have an uneven space and also part of my bench that is not against a wall.
So I cut this little piece to go in the uneven space.
It fits almost perfectly.
For the bench not up against a wall I tried just propping it up but any gust of wind and it fell right over. So I stuck two boards down to help prop it up better.
Now all that’s left is to sand it all down. My pallets were pretty rough with a lot of splinters. I just sanded them enough to get rid of the splinters and smooth it out enough to paint.
If you’re going to paint be sure to brush off all the dust. I tried two different colors to see which I liked better and I decided on dark grey.
Viola! All done. Now go and enjoy your fabulous patio furniture all summer long!
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Comments
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2 of 52 comments
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I love this Idea !!! Where in Texas are you?. I live in Texas also just south of Ft.Worth
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Love your idea!! Absolutely nice !
Frequently asked questions
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what kind of nails and screws did you need and how many?
Did you make the chairs also ?