The San Diego Projects - Oct 2014
After moving with my future wife to a new house in San Diego and looking for DIY furniture, we found some good ideas on Pinterest - Pallets!
The idea was to make a pallet headboard - free wood and the regular stain.
Driving around the neighborhood we asked for pallets at construction site - removing the boards takes some time, and the internet has a lot of ideas of how to remove them, but, honestly, after working with some pallets, I got to the conclusion that the best method varies from pallet to pallet, as there is a fine variety of construction methods for these guys.
Be aware that depending on the pallet condition, you will have to waste more time sanding it or getting rid of some nasty boards.
Well, we removed the boards and rearranged them accordingly, using two screwdrivers and a hammer to remove them, and eventually an electric one to drill the nail heads
After some tough decision on the type of stain , here are a few pictures of how good it gets after the first hand of stain. A good method I found is to wrap your hands with a plastic bag while holding the stain cloth. No more stained nails!
Notice that the two boards on the side. No need to take them horizontally all the way down (as the bed will be there), so I added a couple to the side as the headboard will be wider than the bed.
Before putting the top on, though, I added (no pictures for those):
- Two nut/bolt sets to hold both pallet sets together
- Four drywall screws to secure the piece to the wall (two for each).
The final part was a piece of lumber found at Home Depot and cut right there to the exact dimensions we needed. Also stained and varnished.
A couple screws held the last piece to the headboard, with a small hole drilled prior to the screw, making a path for it.
This is the final result, sorry for the badly done bed!
Costs of the project:
- Pallets $0 Free
- 1 Qt Minwax Stain (~$9-$11)
- 1 Qt Polyurethane Varnish (~$9-11)
- Sandpaper (~$5)
- Top board + screws ~$8-12
Pretty headboard for less than $40!
