Recently, creative trends in the handmade style have been quite popular. Even workshops have appeared that make furniture from the most ordinary household pallets or pallets, as they are also called. But why pay for the expensive services of a craftsman when you can simply make a bed, a dressing room or a table from pallets with your own hands. In addition, wooden interior items will look interesting, quite expensive and with a twist.
- Tools and woodworking
Pallets in the interior
Such interior items, created from wooden boxes, look interesting and varied depending on the decor, purpose and place of use.
Provence
The Provence style is typical for country houses or small apartments. It uses light colors as the main colors: soft pink, light turquoise, lilac, sometimes blue, but the base is always white or cream. You can paint the future table in similar colors.
This style often includes flowers or floral prints, upholstered furniture, and an abundance of textiles. The table on top can be covered with a light lace tablecloth, complementing the composition with cute small vases of flowers.
Holiday decor
Pallets have recently become a favorite interior item at wedding events or other outdoor celebrations. First of all, such items have a very low cost, which allows you to buy a lot of them and not regret it. Wide functionality is also important.
Wedding in "Rustic" style
Rustic style celebrations are becoming increasingly popular and relevant. Distinctive features are a penchant for naturalness, which is why weddings are often celebrated outdoors. There is a huge amount of light here: various paper lamps, garlands of light bulbs, candles in variously decorated candlesticks are used.
The materials chosen are mostly natural, the main one being wood. Not only the table and chairs are made of wood, but also stands for dishes or bottles, candlesticks, lamps; wood is used to decorate the area for photo shoots.
By placing a pillow on a wooden pallet (secured with a stapler or tape) or upholstering it with fabric, you can make cute stools. Several of these are placed around a coffee table, which in nature can be made from an ordinary stump.
Country wedding
Pallets will be the most appropriate and even cute decoration item at a so-called “rustic” wedding with a large wooden table, haystacks, sunflowers and oats in jugs. This style looks quite interesting, especially if you focus on Russian traditions or floral, autumn themes.
Halloween
Many cafes or flower shops with loft-style designs carefully select decorations for their windows or exterior decoration. Bouquets of flowers, twigs, wreaths, candles and pumpkins - all these are integral elements of decor. But for the street it is necessary to select inexpensive furniture so that if damaged it can be easily replaced, so wooden boxes are ideal, especially since they look interesting in the style of the store.
Speaking specifically about Halloween design, examples include not only cafes, but also numerous art spaces, clubs and rooms where themed events are held. Such furniture is ideal as a prop, used for just a couple of days. You can put gauze and artificial cobwebs on top of the boxes. Painting pallets black makes it easy to create ambiance-matching tables or bar counters on which to place pumpkins, candles, and other decorations.
Pallet decor
A necessary stage in the processing of wooden products is the application of a waterproof coating, most often in the form of varnish or special paint. In most cases, the varnish chosen is transparent, but the choice of shades is quite wide. Varnishes have a watery structure; they only give the wood a certain tone, for example, making it orange, dark brown or with a reddish tint. Paint is often applied over or instead of a varnish coating, the palette of which is much more diverse.
A popular option could be a white coating with gray details, finished in an antique style. This option is often used in cafes or cute home interiors in pastel colors. In addition, such an aged version will fit well into the most modern interior today. Combined with black metal details, grey, dark and bright accents in the design.
Decoupage or large old-fashioned stickers will diversify the decor and become an interesting element. You can also plant flowers or put pots of evergreens in the pallets. If desired, the boards can be braided with threads or fabric; various miniature figures can be attached on top, for example, wooden ladybugs or butterflies can be glued on top.
Other furniture made from pallets
At home, you can make many simple pieces of furniture from pallets. Entire boxes are held together in them; in rare cases, the boards are disassembled and used as building material.
The following can be made from wooden boxes:
- cabinets, including wardrobe systems;
- sofas;
- hanging swings;
- bed frame.
The furniture turns out to be quite extraordinary; it is often used to create the interior of bars and anti-cafes. In addition, a positive factor is the low cost of such products. In St. Petersburg, in one of the clothing stores for informal people, pallets are used as racks and shelves for shoes. There is hay on top of them, and images are made on them using a stencil and spray paint.
It’s easy to use pallets to create not only furniture, but also storage space. From boxes placed on top of each other, you can create a closet in a short time, which will be suitable for clothes, books, shoes and even flowers, depending on the location. With proper treatment of the wooden surface, such a rack will stand on the street without turning black or deteriorating.
Some people also consider a significant advantage of such furniture to be the fact that when designing a storage system, you can create several blocks. Subsequently, which will change places, which will create variety. In addition, many people attach small wheels or rollers to the bottom of the drawers, making it easy to transport and simply move such furniture around the house.
Pallet table designs
The most used design options are:
- round;
- lunch (long holiday);
- worker;
- low coffee table.
The most difficult thing will be to make a round table from pallets, since for this you will have to cut out a lot of parts. Therefore, this design is least recommended.
But in just an hour or two you can make your dream of a table for a laptop or personal computer come true. If desired, the boards can be pre-painted in the chosen color. Next, select the required size. The smallest table for a laptop can be made even from half a drawer, attaching it to the wall with vertical slats and then fastening it diagonally. The fastening can come from above and be made of ropes, or from below - from wooden slats.
A work table, like a dining table, is most often made from several pallets. They are used exclusively as a base for a tabletop. In this case, the sides can be removed (separately along the contour or inside the table structure) or, if desired, left for easier fastening.
You don't even need carpentry tools to make a low coffee table. It will be enough to glue two boxes upside down around the perimeter. A coffee table in a similar style will look amazing in a boho or oriental style. There are an abundance of pillows, colorful patterns, traditional decorations and dim lighting from lamps.
One technology is used to create a bar counter or table without legs. Pallets are placed vertically (long side on the side, short side on top and bottom), the sides are fastened together. Fastenings can be made using special construction clamps, metal fasteners or screws and bolts. To create a table, pallets are lined up in the shape of a rectangle; for a bar counter, an open letter “P” or “G” is created.
Tools
Furniture made from pallets is a kind of construction set made up of several pallets fastened together. The manufacturing process is not particularly difficult. It is enough to have the simplest devices.
Tools for working with pallets:
- A screwdriver is a power tool that allows you to quickly screw in and unscrew confirms from wood. The device can be battery or battery operated. In garden conditions, the latter option is more useful, since furniture from pallets is assembled in the open air, where it is not always possible to connect to the network. A drill-driver allows you to quickly and efficiently sand boards with special attachments.
- Grinder is an electric circular saw for cutting wood and metal.
- A wood hacksaw is a hand saw that replaces a grinder.
- An electric jigsaw can be used to cut boards or make shaped decorations.
- Screwdrivers, hammer, pliers are standard hand tools.
When working with wood, you need to wear protective equipment - glasses, gloves.
For painting you will need painting tools: brushes, a rubber spatula for filling cracks and small holes. A nail puller is indispensable when dismantling pallets. The tool allows you to remove old fasteners from boards. Pallets are nailed together with rough nails, which are much more resistant to tearing than regular nails. It will take twice as much effort to pull them out of the boards.
Features of birch furniture, its main advantages
Screwdriver
Bulgarian
Wood hacksaw
Electric jigsaw
Hand tool
Painting tools
nail puller
DIY table made from pallets - step-by-step instructions
First of all, measurements are taken, you need to determine the area of the tabletop of the future table and calculate how many pallets will be needed to create it. Next, depending on the chosen design, the creation of the tabletop begins.
The wooden slats are separated from each other and connected using another base of the structure. Larger wooden beams, an iron frame or a concrete base can be used for this. On which already sanded and painted boards from former boxes are applied in a given order.
If the tabletop is made from solid parts, then they are only fastened together. Of course, after all unnecessary elements are removed. Drawers stacked on top of each other in various ways can also be used as legs.
The simplest and most reliable among them is considered to be the technique presented earlier for creating a coffee table, when pallets are placed on top of each other and then fastened together. You can also fasten their side slats or make an independent structure out of them. The last option will be optimal, since it will not be difficult to implement, but at the same time it will be reliable and transportable. However, such a design will be quite heavy.
To create a small table with legs you only need one drawer; using the same design and more drawers you can create a large dining table. Such a table is suitable not only for a summer cottage and a gazebo, but with proper, careful processing it will be suitable for a city apartment. For small boxes you will need to remove the side walls; this is not required for installing pallets. Next, the box is turned over with the solid side down, and a tabletop is attached to the top.
It can be solid, or made of boards or glass. The box will need to be secured to a rectangular wooden structure made of thin timber, prepared in advance. To do this, four beams are pre-fastened together. Legs are attached to the structure; for greater reliability, they can be secured using two boards, diagonally attached to each of the legs.
All structural parts are secured to each other using screws or nails, and then painted. It is recommended to install the tabletop last.
Tools and woodworking
To create drawings and initial sketches, of course, you will need paper, pencils, a knife and a tape measure. After creating the drawings, it is important to make calculations and try them on real materials, that is, on the pallets themselves.
First of all, you should trim the wood with a plane to make the surface smooth and avoid accidentally introducing a splinter. Fine grinding is done with sandpaper. First, the surface is treated with highly abrasive paper, and then, if necessary, with fine paper. Sometimes, to create the effect of rough wood, the sanding step is skipped.
Standard tools for woodworking are: a hammer with nails, a saw or a jigsaw. A circular saw is used to cut holes, mostly round or to shape the tabletop. It is recommended to replace the traditional hammer and nails with an electric screwdriver or screwdriver, so the work will be much faster and easier.
Sometimes you may need to glue some parts together, for this it is better to use a special glue gun and strong wood glue. It is unreliable to use such a technique to fasten parts, but glue can be applied as an additional fastener. In addition, it is ideal for securing decorative elements.
If the option of creating furniture exclusively from pallets is not suitable, then you will have to use additional materials. Most often, bars with a small cross-section are used, sometimes boards.
Preparation of material
Before starting work, the pallets are pre-prepared:
| Illustration | Description |
| Select the pallets that will be used to make the table. Carefully inspect them from all sides for damage and defects. Next, the surface is cleaned of dust and debris, if any, this is done with a simple brush or broom.
| |
| Sand all surfaces that will be outside. This must be done so as not to remove splinters from your fingers later. A belt sander is best suited for the job; it can quickly smooth flat surfaces with minimal effort. For work, sandpaper with a gradation from 80 to 240 is used. It all depends on the condition of the surface. Sometimes it is better to first go through with coarser sandpaper, and then bring the plane to the ideal with finer sandpaper. | |
| You can putty all damage and fastening points with a special wood compound . It is cheap, so it will not significantly affect the price of the project. But this is not necessary; fasteners give the furniture a special authenticity. | |
| Treat the surface with a special impregnation . This will protect it from pests and increase resistance to moisture and adverse weather conditions. |
Tips and tricks
Before work, only one question arises: where to get pallets. They can be found in large quantities near grocery stores or large chain stores, most often in the trash area. It may seem a little shameful to collect essentially discarded items, but they are often located nearby. In addition, in most cases they are thrown away whole and clean. If you wish, you can contact the company or the store administration and agree to buy new pallets.
Handling and moving boxes should be handled with care; you must wear gloves. The making of boxes is neglected as it is only a temporary method of transportation and therefore the boards are not treated. As a result, you can easily get numerous abrasions and splinters if you work without gloves. For the same reason, the surface should first be processed, leveled and sanded.
It is better to use the boxes not entirely, but to first disassemble them into boards, since they are not always flat and have strong fasteners. From which it follows that it is better to reassemble them according to the parameters you need. It is also necessary to disassemble the pallets in a situation where you are planning a very non-standard or large structure, the parts of which cannot be simply combined from several boxes.
Wooden boxes are not only a very cheap material for creating various pieces of furniture, but at the same time they can become an original and very stylish element of the interior. Depending on the style, the design of the furniture itself is selected. Wooden planks are easy to paint, so they can be transformed into almost anything without much effort.
DIY pallet table
Material pallet DIY table
A place for lunch and light socializing
If the space of your home allows, you should never refuse a large table. This place attracts friends, family, and good acquaintances. It can be difficult to choose a suitable table: one is too expensive, the other is too bulky. Make your own modern model from pallets. Visually light, it will become a decorative object in any interior and will cost you very little.
What to prepare for work
- Electric drill;
- grinding machine with attachments;
- paint, brushes;
- goggles and dust mask;
- clamps;
- the longest copy of all the pallets that you can get (220x75 cm was used in the project);
- 8 maximally even boards for the tabletop measuring 220x9.5 cm;
- wood sealant;
- paint for wood, color to choose from;
- a roll of paper to protect the floor if you are going to work at home;
- glue for wood materials;
- screws for fastening the upper strips from 2 to 8 cm;
- ready-made metal legs designed for heavy loads;
- 8 large screws;
- 8 wing nuts;
- 4 metal corner plates;
- 4 double metal plates for installing table legs.
Step-by-step job description
- In fact, the first point is the most important - finding a pallet that will match the size of the desired table. Otherwise, you will have to use 2 products, which will complicate the DIY work. You will need to strengthen the structure and have another leg in the middle.
- Prepare the wood for work - thoroughly sand the surfaces. Try to make the ends of the planks as even as possible. Remember to use safety glasses and a mask while working.
- Treat all uneven areas with sealant.
- Adjust the length of the tabletop boards to the dimensions of the pallet.
- Paint the boards and pallet.
- After the paint has dried, glue the boards onto the pallet, placing them tightly next to each other. To make the connection stronger, secure it with clamps. Leave until the glue is completely dry.
- After the glue has dried, secure the connection of the boards to the pallet by screwing confirms through the metal corners and plates on the underside. In this case, the confirmations will not be visible on the tabletop, the table will be neat.
- Install double metal fastening plates at the corners of the product from the inside. It must be done in such a way that the confirmations, when screwed in, fall into the middle of the pallet boards.
- Install the finished metal legs. Your table is ready! Enjoy!
