Sweet Swan Songs: DIY Pallet Project…Part 1

Hi, happy Monday!
I hope your weekend was good, ours was! We went on a lovely run last night at sunset and it was so nice! The kids got to see ducks and run up and down “mountains”…(hills).. It was a very nice family time.

Lately I’ve been browsing a lot on Pinterest, looking for ideas for home décor, crafts, recipes- there are so many fun and interesting ideas on there! You should come and visit and see…
(If you don’t have a Pinterest account, leave your email in the comments of this post and I’ll invite you. For some reason you need to be “invited”. Dumb, but that’s the way it is. You can look at everything without an account, you just can’t “pin” anything.)

Anyway, I was looking on there and found a ton of cool ideas to make with pallets.

Isn’t this table cool? Not to mention the giant bird art..

And I absolutely adore this side table.

You know what pallets I'm talking about, right? Those wood pallets that are used for packaging all kinds of things, that you see lying by the side of the road all the time? Yep. Free for the taking. Go get yourself one. Or ten. Just make sure they're not wanted by whomever has them currently!

We happened to acquire two such pallets recently ( from the side of the road) and were going to use them to make a compost bin…but then they were kind of big..so they just sat in front of our garage until one day last week when I was outside with the kids and had the bright idea of making one of them into….

A table.

A nice, rustic, sturdy table.

Our current table is a patio bistro set that we got for free. (also off the side of the road, on our very own street!) It’s super cute, but really small. Eliana is getting nearly too big for her high chair, and when she decides to eat with us at the table, things get really cramped.

Here is a shot of the top of our existing table…you can’t see the whole thing but I think you can get a pretty good idea of how not big it is. It’s definitely time for a bigger table. Like, the size of a pallet, for instance!
I want a huge, long farm table eventually, but our house is small and therefore we need a small table for now.

And how much more fun would it be to make your very own table instead of just going out and buying it?? I think its a lot more fun. Then you have a one-of-a-kind piece, for hardly any cash!
So far, all we’ve done is sand the pallet and clean it off a little bit (it had lots of spider webs and leaves and stuff on it) and we also have cut the legs for the table..made out of old landscaping ties (long pieces of wood) that were in our flowerbeds when we moved here. (they were less than attractive, so we removed them.)

Here are the raw materials. These pallets are a little different than the regular ones that usually have slats down both sides-these ones have plywood on one side and a few slats on the other. Perfect for making a table.

The picture on the right is what we used for the table legs. I simply found a few pieces that were in fair condition and cut them down into four 33 in. long legs. The standard table height is 30 in. and the legs are going to be about 2 or 3 in. under the table so I allowed a few extra inches for that. I figured it’s better to have a table that’s a little higher than a table that is too short! I tried cutting the first leg with a hand saw, but it took FOREVER and it was literally 100 degrees out in the garage. So, when hubby got home, he went at it with the chain saw and got the job done. I suppose if we do too much more of these sorts of things we should get actual power tools! Smile

Some sandpaper… The corners of the pallets were a little banged up, so I think we’re going to put metal brackets around them to stabilize them and keep us from getting scratched on the wood.

The back of the pallet, complete with leaves and spider webs..icky.

Eliana and Ethan wanted to get in on the action, and helped me do some sanding as well. Ethan really kind of just watched, in between playing on the slip n’ slide and in the sprinkler.

Here is a picture of the cut table legs, before sanding. And some of me doing the sanding..

That’s all we have accomplished so far! I think we’re going to work on it more tomorrow, so check back soon to see what we’ve done!
Please keep in mind that we are in no way professional DIY-ers (is there such a thing?) and this very well might not turn out! But you get to join in on the adventure with us regardless. Open-mouthed smile