DIY PALLET ENTERTAINMENT CENTER

It was about Christmas time and I wanted to make something special for my wife whom I had just married.  I wanted it to be a surprise, so once again I was pressed for time.  It was supposed to be for the bedroom to put things on ( I noticed it was getting a little cluttered on the cardboard boxes we were using...).  I measured the height to the mirror and the width under the mirror to get just the right dimensions.  I had started to get my pallets from a solar panel company that always had free pallets in the back of their shop.  These pallets were clean and not falling apart. Also, a nice long one would show up on the pile every once in a while.  This pallet didn't have nails for 5 feet, which is amazing for someone who likes to put together pallet creations.  I made it first without the middle support, but after consulting my mom who was around at the time ( I do all my pallet projects at their home since they actually have a yard) I decided to support the middle a little more.  This was good because the moment my wife saw it she said, "Entertainment center!" So... instead of a bedroom item it became an entertainment center and the center piece was essential to hold up the television.  It worked out nicely, except I think if I do it again, I will make provisions to hide all those cables.

DIY PALLET CLASSIC COFFEE TABLE

Along with the bookshelves, my fiance (now wife) and I made a coffee table for her apartment.  We were working with some not so clean pallets at the time, and so we were kind of picky about which pallet to use.  The pallet we ended up using was nice and clean,  lighter in color and had a lot of fuzzy wood on the surface.  We chopped the ends off to make it the perfect width.  We used one of the boards that we cut off to fill in the two gaps left on the top.  For the legs we cut the supporting pieces that had been already cut off into shorter pieces to give us the height we wanted.  We did end up using supporting brackets for the legs, and in the future I think I will find a better way to do the legs with just the pallet itself.  However, the final look with the legs is pretty nice.  I did have to sand it down for a long long time to get it smooth.  It was worth it though, and our coffee table is still in our living room looking good!

DIY PALLET VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT

Sometimes, inspiration is brought on by haste.  This was one of those times.  During tax season, my wife works on weekends.  On one of those weekends before Valentine's Day I sneaked over to my parent's house to make her a surprise Valentine's Day box.  With only a few precious hours, a lonely hinge, some chalkboard paint and chalk I produced the pretty project you see below.  A quick stop to pick up some Hershey's Kisses and Hugs, and my Valentine's Day box of kisses and hugs was ready to go! Definitely a Saturday morning well spent!

DIY PALLET FIRST PROJECT: BOOKSHELVES!

   The first project I did with pallets was the classic coffee table and two book holders.  It was my fiance's idea (now my wife:).  She just moved to Oahu from the Big Island and didn't have too much stuff in her apartment.  So we set about to make it happen.

   It was pretty simple to do the bookshelves.  We simply cut a pallet in half and sanded the outside.  Then we took two cross pieces from another pallet and made a bottom for the shelves.  To be honest they are really heavy, and maybe in the future will be used as planters (we can't have plants in our apartment).  Right now they sit on the floor and hold a couple of books and magazines.  Pretty simple and easy to make!

INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD OF DIY PALLETS

       Last year I discovered pallets for the first time in my life.  My friends just got married and during one of our visits to their new home, I noticed the couch was lifted up on pallets.  My friend told me that it was free pallets that they got down the road. They had put their couch on the pallets and put Christmas lights on the ground in the pallets which made a cool glow under the couch.  I thought to myself, hey that's kind of neat.  Needless to say, I started looking out for pallets during my frequent visits to craigslist's free posting page.
       One day I saw a posting for  free pallets right down the road at a pet store.  I drove down and picked some up.  My mom also fell in love with the idea of using free pallets.  No more than a couple weeks later there were over 20 pallets added to my 3 pallet collection in the yard!  I wasn't sure how or what my mom was going to do with the pallets, but to my surprise it turned out pretty nice.  She simply stacked them side by side to make a fence around our yard.  Various plants propped it up along with some nails and spare wood.  Hanging Spanish moss over the top completed the look: