Pallet Wood Projects

Pallet Wood... all the rage at the moment!

Pallet Wall Project

Hybrid Pallet WallPallet Wood and Board Feature wall.

Project Brief...

We needed to cover a nasty wall... and started looking around Pinterest for ideas...we had talked about cladding the wall with standard wooden cladding, but decided it would look too predictable and tame and to be frank felt bored by the idea.. excuse the pun.

Here's the Wall...covered in a White Textured paint in several layers with old paper and paint below, it was very lumpy and difficult to remove...yes we could have plaster skimmed it, but decided to do something different.

For the benefit of those who cant just go and buy stripped down pallets boards from Home Depot ( US Only) here's how to do it in the real world... rather than I just bought some boards and stuck them to the wall! Although it can be that easy there's still a fair bit of prep to do regardless.

Old skirting board had to come off, and an old water leak in the ceiling meant boarding and plastering the ceiling and those horrible concrete beams!

Textured Paint is a little like Artex finish, next to impossible to remove with standard heat or scraping methods, I'd also added wall lights and rough plastered these in as well previously...making the wall surface a bit of a hotch potch!

How to Build the Pallet Wall?

This was the question... and so research began

How to fix the wood to the wall!

Options included...

Glue/Grip Fill the Wood to the wall:
- This is good if you have a clean flat surface and dont ever want to remove the wood.
- This is good if you have a consistent type of wood and dont need to cut or fit parts like a jigsaw....
- This is good if you dont mind waiting for the the level of wood you just glued to go off before attempting to glue more above it. Wood has a certain weight and although Fast grab and set type glues like No Nails or Grip Fill will hold stuff it takes a while for this to cure and be rigid enough to support further weight.
- This is an easy option if you have limited access to tools and equipment
Use Battens and Nail or Screw to the wall
- This is the way to go if your able to as it gives you the most efficient way to fix, change or remove items
- It also means you can accommodate the weight of the wood
- It means you can plan the wall and fix all in one go
- It means you can do it ad Hoc and change pieces more easily if you change your mind (Aesthetic Differences) come to the fore once you get going!
Use Screws or Nails
- I used a Paslode Nail Gun to attach the boards, whereas the Battens I used standard Screws and Wall plugs
- Using Screws to fix the boards means leaving screw heads visible
- Using screws may also mean pre-drilling holes in the edge of boards unless you use decking screws like a Spax WIROX type
- Drilling boards often means drilling wood that's weak or has a poor edge meaning splits and cracks and bulges

Where to Get the Pallets?

Skip Diver and Pickup Driver... Aesthetics and Style... or What do you like?

I have found that Pallets in the UK consist mainly of Pine, Spruce and softwood, although one or two I have found were Chestnut or finer grained wood.

One key aspect to Pallet walls is to get Pallets with "Features", rather than standard boring plain white softwood, unless of course you want plain white softwood!

These pieces were on the underside of pieces of pallets, which meant you couldn't see them without looking closely

As you can see you can get nice Bark elements or features where Bark used to be

Some Pallets are made from closer grained Chestnut, Poplar or Beech, however these are rarer and hard to find.

The main things to look for are

1. The Type of Wood

2. The Ageing and Quality of aesthetics your looking for, Red,s Brown's, Greys etc, will these go with your Furniture

3. Damage and Weathering,

4. Infestation, Rot, Worms, or Wood Lice etc

Where to find them?

Pallets are most often used in industrial and packaging scenario's such as

Manufacturing Delivery
Construction Delivery
Goods Delivery

Most are stored and then returned, if damaged they are usually recycled by putting into a large Recycling skip on the site.

Smaller Construction sites often dump them in skips...so hunt through Skips or (Dumpsters)

If you know someone who works in any of the above ask them to get some if possible.

However be warned......

Size and Shape?

If you cannot get pallets of a similar type you will have to work at adjusting the shape and type of wall your producing

Pallet Wood varies in Width, Depth and Length and pallets come with varying sizes of wood. You will have to work at getting consistent types of Pallet to achieve a consistent and easy application, especially if your gluing boards or have little access to tools to allow you to reshape the wood.

Pallet Wood is around 1mtr long, 75 - 150mm wide and varies in Depth from 7mm to 15mm depending on the pallet style and type.

Heavy Duty Industrial Pallets will used 15mm deep wood, 150mm wide, whereas light weight delivery Pallets will be smaller thinner and easier to handle

Refer to a site like this for clear details: http://rpsltd.com/pallet-specifications.html

Area of Wall to Cover?

You may not have thought about the amount of wall to cover and the amount of wood you might need, Most pallets will depending on type provide at best around 1.5mtr sq of coverage, at worst only 0.5mtr.

You need to do a Sqr mtr calculation to estimate the amount and factor in some extra for cuts, broken and damaged, bent and unusable pieces etc.

OK so you have a Pallet!

How to dismantle a pallet....various methods out there, including

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ufpi-Treated-Duckbill-Deck-Wrecker/dp/B003F6TLYM

https://www.amazon.com/Ezy-Lifter-deck-remover-pry-bar/dp/B00FVJ225G

However be warned some will leave you with Nails exposed that need removing, some will split the wood and other will cost you dear in terms of effort!

I chose to use the Following tools, for precision and because it means the Nails are generally cut to bits...leaving the heads in the Wood and the wood intact!

1. Reciprocating Saw with Long 8" Steel Cutting Blade

2. Bolster Chisel and Hammer

3, Work Bench

4. Protective Gloves, Ear Mufflers, Steel toe caps and Goggles might advisable for some.

There is no realistic way around this other than to manipulate the Pallet into a place where you can hack it to bits!

Attacking Wet Pallets is painful so wait till they are good and dry, wet ones are heavier and hard to cut!

Make sure you have a good place to rest the Pallet and some where to store the parts when done

The Extra long blade fits down between the boards and can cut through the nails. You have to be careful to avoid cutting into the wood...so it pays to use a Bolster chisel to move the boards apart just enough to free the blade and allow access to the nails!

Use the Bolster and Hammer to part the boards a little

As your dismantling the pallet check the type of boards and see if you have ones with interesting features on?

Where to Store the Wood

Once you have started dismantling you'll need somewhere to store the parts, I found a handy crate

Remember to keep them dry.. if you can transfer them to an internal store like a Garage or Shed for a while they will dry out and shrink, making preparation and fitting easier

Preparing Boards...

Pallet wood is rough sawn timber and as such comes without smooth edges or surfaces, it's been sawn with large blades and generally has a un-planed surface

it means you'll need to

Sand the Surface to remove rough edges and dirt
Possibly removing some elements of interest like colouring, staining and or marks
Although you dont have to Sand boards.. its advisable if they are going into a Domestic environment.
You will need to wash the boards after treatment to remove dust and dirt
You will need to decide which boards are going to be kept and which thrown as some will be un-useable
- Bent and Twisted
- Cracked and Buckled
- Split and bits missing etc
- cut in irregular lines... I mean literally like a Boomerang! I have found boards that looked like that!

Preparing Boards for use sometimes means providing a little TLC to mend cracks and splits that mean the board can be retained, rather than thrown away.

I found a good PVA adhesive and some Clamps does the trick

Tools for Board preparation

I used the following :

Belt Sander: With Rough Belts
Electric Plane
Pliers: for removing Nails
Bench

Keter Work Bench, Very Handy tool and folds away easily , light and maneuverable but has adjustable clamps and lots of options for holding work down for cutting and sanding

Black and Decker Sander, I used rough Sanding Belts and still got a smooth enough finish for varnishing, acceptable for domestic use

Macalister 2mm electric plane, Very useful for smoothing edges and taking off wood to allow things to fit!

Bosch Circular Saw, invaluable for cutting boards along the length, with the rip fence or prepping pieces that needed adjustment to fit

Macalister Compound Mitre Saw, very very useful for small cuts, angles and ends!

Making the Wall...

The basic process I used was to batten the wall using 16mm*32mm Roofing battens, these provided a wide enough piece of wood to nail the boards to and raised the wood away for the wall enough to allow space behind for cables and other elements.

I had to accommodate Data , Telephone and Lighting cables as you can see here

I wanted to be able to hide these and add lighting and power elements into the wall in due course.

I am fortunate in being a qualified electrician so I could do this pretty easily...others may struggle and I suggest if you need to "adjust" cabling, boxes or lights etc you get a qualified electrician to do it!

I removed the Skirting Board, and the old cladding on the left-hand wall by the door, I had to add new insulation to this wall and decided to add this to the pallet wall as well as an easy way of re-cladding it.

As you can see I've removed the cladding and started battening the wall

Basically

1. Cut the battens to length, in this instance I needed to leave space at the bottom for the Laminate flooring

2. Drill holes for Screw fixings

3, Place against wall and drill/mark first hole

4. Drill and plug hole using standard wall plugs and 50mm wood screws

5. Attach wood to wall and Drill remaining holes and plug and screw through the pre-drilled holes

6 Use a Spirit Level to get the vertical. Also plan the spacing according to the length of the boards you plan to use, I spaced mine approximately 50cm apart

As you can see I also used Expandable Foam to fill holes and gaps in floor

How to Plan the wall!... Or What Artistic effects are you trying to achieve if any?

I was trying to get a the following effects.

1. Random fit and unusual features!

2. Colours range around the Gray/Purple/Brown to light Grey/Pale browns

3. Taking in to account : Furniture Colours, Floor Colours, Remaining Room Colouring. The fact that this would be a strong feature wall and wouldn't work well if the surrounding walls were anything other than White!

4. I also planned to use Boards which are not from Pallets, so this is a Hybrid pallet wall. This mean't taking into consideration the length and style of the boards as well as colour and placing.

5. I used a combination of various types of Pallet and couldn't get consistent types.

6. I also found the colours of alot of the pallets I did find were not weathered , coloured, stained or fatigued in any particularly interesting ways so it took sometime to get the ones I felt would work.

7. Do you want to have a Dark background effect behind the wood or do you not? You could paint the wall black before installing boards, I didn't and it hasn't had that much effect to my mind.

Make a Start and See how it goes or lay it out and plan each piece

It may be you only have a small wall you want to feature Pallets on.. this means its going to be easy to layout the wall and plan each piece before fitting.

If you have a space to do this and the wall is small enough you could plan it this way.

Most people pretty much make a start and go for it with a Random...stick it here approach and see if it looks good then fix it?

I fixed my boards using a Paslode Nail Gun: 50mm Brad Nails: See here

This fires a thin brad nail using Gas.

Its convenient and easy to use although expensive to buy

You can get them on Hire or Rent etc

You can also buy Air Powered versions which us a small compressor

Tips and Tricks I used

As this Wall is not a straight forward ... stick wood to the wall kind of project I came across several things I needed to get around

1. Gaps in the Wood:

Pallet wood is not straight, ends can be damaged or pieces missing, which leave Gaps
Easy ways around this are to fit a piece of wood behind the gap

You can pin the wood with a Nail and then carry on boarding, as long as the wood is the same depth and colour style you can get away with it.

2. Cuts and Small pieces: You will inevitably end up with the need to cut small pieces to fit into gaps or around things.

Use the Mitre Saw to get neat ends and join similar wood to the same piece if its a small gap
Fit a back piece behind the gap and fix the small piece to it and to the remaining board

3. Gaps , Splits and Cracks