The pallet wall is done! *Angels are singing* *Sporadic dancing wherever I go* YAY! This was the easiest yet cheapest yet longest project we've taken on. Let me break it down for those who want to attempt this themselves!
First thing is first. We needed to find pallets and lots of them! I called around to different stores and finally was able to track some down at a local nursery. When I got there, they had a stack of about 20 pallets sitting by the side of the road with a free sign. SCORE! Now, as someone who has never attempted a pallet project, I came very unprepared to haul these bad boys into the back of my jeep by myself. HA! Prepare to get dirty ladies. I picked through and grabbed my favorite ones. The weathered gray look is what I was going for with a few darker pieces. I grabbed a variety of pallets and made sure that the boards weren't broken and mostly useable. Pallets are everyyywhheerreee. Don't pay for them! Check local stores, Craigslist, nurseries... You'll find em!
Swimming in pallets
Once I got these home we took them apart! Now really the only way to do this is with a sawzall or also known as a rotating saw. If you use a prying method you'll shatter your boards. This part isn't necessarily difficult, just time consuming. Also you really need two people for this part. Hubby worked the saw through the pallets while I held them steady. Once you get through this it's pretty much smooth sailing from there! We didn't stain or really do anything to the wood. We loved the natural beat up look to it and honestly I was too lazy to sand or smooth anything out. When taking them apart, you need to keep the boards all separated in stacks by size. To get the random effect on the wall, we staggered different sizes for different rows. Each row must be the same size through all the way across or else your wall will be all off and gaps will be everywhere! Our wall measured 9ft by 9 ft exactly and we used 9 pallets total without a board left over. We measured out where the studs where and away we went!
My Mr. nailing my vision to the wall
We started each row alternating sides so the seams would be random and it wouldn't look uniform. Ex. Top row start from the left. Second row, start from the right. Third row, start from the left again. We didn't bother using a level, it pretty much levels itself and in the end it will definitely be a little off but nothing noticeable. :)
Each row took two whole boards and then we'd cut a board to fit the rest of the row flush against the wall. You will have some gaps between your boards! Looking back, it would have been better to paint the wall a darker color before starting so the gaps don't show as much but I went back through and filled in the gaps with a darker paint to blend a little better.
It took us one full day and a handful of hours a few days before that to cut the pallets apart and put it up on the wall. Not too bad!
Now here's the best part. This project was almost completely FREE! If we already had the saw, it would have been about $5 for the nails. That's it! We found our saw for $30 so our total cost was around $35. I've made wreaths for more than that!
If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited about our wall. I'll do another post down the road after I style it some more and add a few more modern touches to balance the rustic. Maybe painting those benches turquoise? Stencil them? Canvas prints on the wall? My options are endless!
I hope my description was easy to understand. If you decide to tackle this project I promise it will be well worth it! Have fun!
Happy girl + Her Pallet Wall
