Pallet Furniture DIY Project

At my brothers factory, he is always receiving these long pallets of material that all include packing timber frames on the top and bottom of each pack. I must admit that I have seen these pallets over the years and not once did it occur to me to try and use the timber to build some furniture instead of just using it in my fireplace.

All this pallet timber is just being wasted

Recently I noticed that an old table, with a slat top, that was always sitting outside was starting to look a bit worse for wear. A few of the slats along the top had rotted on the ends and they were starting to break off. That was the first time I thought about using the pallet timber as a free source of material to give this old table a new top. (It never crossed my mind to take a picture of it before pulling it apart. Sorry).

So I went through the pile of packing timber and selected some of the straightest, and cleanest. After pulling them apart and also de-nailing them I was left with a nice pile of usable timber.

I ran all the timber lengths through the thicknesser to dress them up, and didn’t bother about any twisting as I had more timber than I needed, and I would select and cut only the best bits for what I needed.

 Things didn’t go exactly to plan – but actually turned out better

After pulling the slats off of the old table, I noticed that some of the timber underneath had also started to rot. So it looked like I had to replace that also. But then again, what if I just dumped the whole thing and started from scratch.

And that’s exactly what I did. I think it turned out pretty good considering where the material had started from.

You can see the end result below!

A sneak peek at the next project

After completing that first reclaimed timber project I must admit that I was a bit inspired and started on the next project – a coffee table. Here’s a sneak peek image below, and I’ll write up a post on it when I’m done. I must admit, I never seem to have enough clamps!

Let me know If you’re working on any reclaimed wood projects.