A Simple Way To Beautify Plastic Planters Using Pallets

Mar 26, 2015

Ah, pallets – is there anything they can’t be used for? In this simple lesson, you’ll learn how to salvage those plain black planter containers you get from the nursery, giving them a rustic look that’s worth displaying anywhere around the house.

First you’ll want to measure the pallet slats to the correct length…

Next you’ll fasten them to the sides using thin “brad” style nails.

Once you finish that step, the inside of your container will look more like something Hannibal would create. To make this safe, use pliars and bend the nails inward.

Boom – your finished planters! They look great as-is, but you could also layer a coat of paint to give them a bolder look.

He Made His PubShed Incredible With 5,500 Pennies

May 12, 2015

With the growing trend of “pubsheds” comes an increasing amount of creativity, as demonstrated by this guy who turned a simple shed dubbed “The Barn” into a very creative backyard bar where he and his buddies can hang out and enjoy a couple drinks. What makes his build unique though is the peculiar use of a whopping 5,500 pennies which he incorporated into the design. Check it out below.

The gabled barn style shed looks nice on the outside…

Yet the inside was lacking in proper bar decor, so he went to work building a bar.

The bar itself isn’t too fancy…yet.

Here’s where he starts to get creative, setting aside $55 worth of pennies for special use.

He even sorted the pennies, keeping the pre-1982 ones from the rest. Talk about commitment!

Before using the pennies, he decided to soak them in vinegar and salt, which removes the oxidization and brings them back to a shiny new state.

But he also left half of them to dry without polishing, which created a nice variation in the color for his project.

Then he set to work, laying the pennies in a diamond pattern according to their shades of color.

You might notice every penny is facing heads up.

Finally he slathered four quarts of resin over the top, using a blowtorch to remove any bubbles, and was left with a beautiful surface on his new bar.

And of course he installed a kegerator to dispense ice cold brews for him and his friends.

The completed project on display, with three local Virginia beers on tap!

Images via Imgur | American Standard

5 DIY Cleaning Products You Can Make Today

Apr 5, 2020

No doubt about it – DIY projects are booming right now. We’re all cooped inside our homes, running low on essential supplies and leery of heading into the supermarket to restock (if there’s anything there at all). But what if you have everything you need at your fingertips already? Here’s a list of fairly simple do it yourself projects all related to cleaning, disinfecting, and keeping those nasty germs away.

5Homemade Disinfectant Wipes

Via Pinkwhen

Disinfectant wipes are in short supply, that’s for sure, so if you can make your own, why not?? All you need is some clean face towels, or old rags/shirts you can tear into pieces and some basic ingredients:

Fabric
1/2 cup Alcohol
1/3 cup Distilled Water
25 drops Lemon Essential Oil
25 drops Tea Tree Essential Oil

Lemon and Tea Tree work wonders as natural antimicrobial substances, and the alcohol further boosts this mixture’s ability to wipe out nasty germs. Mix it all together, save in a glass jar, and douse a piece of fabric with the solution when you need to clean something. Simple and it saves wasting money and creating extra waste with normal wipes.

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25 Cheeky Hidden Storage Ideas. #22 Is Hilarious!

Jun 7, 2015

With Big Brother being more all-seeing than ever these days, all we can do is carve out little spaces in our lives that are just for us. These 25 brilliant hidden storage ideas go way beyond the clichéd billionaire with a secret safe behind the Monet painting (although no-one is saying that isn’t still cool). From storing disks and documents inside a keyboard to hidden under-floor wine cellars, these DIYers make sure secret remains secret. Although you always have to wonder…what else are they hiding?

1 | Hidden “Art” Wall Cabinet
2 | Pop, Lock and Drop It

5 Amazing Pallet Bars For Your Inspiration

Aug 3, 2014

By far one of the easiest and coolest things we’ve seen done with a pallet is transforming it into a bar. Some are outdoors, others are inside, and some are meant to simply hold all your booze in a nice neat fashion. Whatever you’re looking for, the following examples should get your creative juices flowing.

1. The Outdoor Pallet Bar

All you need for this is a few pallets and a 1″ x 6″ or similar piece of reclaimed wood for the counter.

2. DIY Pallet Cooler

Now here’s a cooler that brings rustic style to replace those big ugly blue things you have laying around. Sturdy, solid, and functional for sure, even if it might involve a little more planning than other DIY pallet projects.

3. Pallet Bar V2

Here’s another look at a bar made from reclaimed pallets, only this time showing the inside of the unit, where convenient shelves have been built in to hold all your high end booze.

4. Pallet Bar V3

Here we have one built for the inside, using a simple configuration that involves two pieces of copper, a couple 2x4s for the shelving, and of course booze. Don’t forget the booze.

5. Pallet Tiki Bar

Sometimes you want to take the vibe back to the beach, and what better way than with a backyard tiki bar? If you’re looking for a budget approach, check this one out. It uses just six pallets, one 2×4 post, and some plywood for the counter. Simple as pie, and with a hanging sign above it you’ll be set. Oh, and booze.

Ultimate Collection of DIY Pallet Furniture Ideas

Aug 30, 2014

We come across so many great ideas that showcase pallets, and thought it would be nice to gather some of them in one place for your viewing pleasure. The amount of creativity shown below is astounding, and we can’t even imagine how some people come up with these ideas, but they do. From using pallets for gardening, to creating a beautiful pallet sofa, pallet bench, and much more. Most of these projects can be accomplished in an afternoon. While a fair amount may require some sort of instructions on cutting angles and so forth, the vast majority of these DIY projects can be done without instructions to be honest.

When building pallet furniture it’s important to keep in mind a few things.

Always sand the wood. Pallets are typically unfinished and have course edges that would give you splinters. You don’t want to be attacked by the piece of furniture you just built!
Use 2x4s or similar pieces of lumber to brace pallets together and create separation between them.
Keep a jigsaw handy for those tricky cuts, especially the curved kind
Use your imagination and let your creative spark take over – you’ll be surprised how easy it is to build many of these pallet projects

Now go forth and create your own tables, chairs, benches, and planters!

How to Make a Pallet Planter Box in a Few Easy Steps

Sep 8, 2014

When people said it is difficult to make a pallet planter box, it only means one thing: they don’t know the secret. Lucky for you, I am going to show you the secret of a beautiful diy pallet planter box. With only light efforts, you can get a nice decoration for your home porch and home lawn.

First, we need to know how many pallet woods we need for the pallet planter box, including length and width for each unit. This is not difficult at all, because we only need to measure the dimension of the plastic pot. Once you get the measurement, you can start measuring the pallet wood based on the dimension of the plastic pot. Take a look at the picture below.
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Cut the woods and form them as a block surrounding the plastic pot. Place the open side at the top, as you can see from the picture. Now, you have a beautiful diy pallet garden planter for your beautiful home or garden.

What if you cannot get a square plastic box as we use in this diy pallet planter box tutorial? Well, don’t worry because you can use any shape you like. We use the square one just because it is the most common shape in the market 🙂

If you followed the instruction carefully, then you should have realized the pallet woods still have fibers on it which makes it look dirty. Here is my tip. Clean the fibers with sand paper until you get smooth surface and clean it with soapy water to give it chic appearance.

Now, you can place this amazing decoration at your garden or house porch.

How to Easily Take Apart a Pallet

Sep 10, 2014

Recycling shipping pallets is the easiest way to get amazing home décor, art, and furniture. However, before you can create all the amazing stuffs, you need to disassemble them first!

These pallets are designed for shipping industry. So, it is not a surprise when they come with strength. These pallets are not only sturdily assembled, but also difficult to dismantle. Spiral nail inserted to all joints using high-pressured air. These nails are the real problem, but fear not because with a little energy, patience, your own hands, and tips from me, you can take rid of these nails without any problem at all, especially without tearing the whole part!

Stringers and slats are two main parts of your pallets. Slats are the upper pieces that are connected to the stringers, as the bottom pieces, with nails on both the centers and ends. Shipping industry uses different pallets to carry different objects with different specifications. They not only come with different materials, but also size of both slats and stringers. All depends on the object it carries.

Now, some people may think thing I am going to tell you is not important, but still I believe you need to know it before you can dismantle your wooden shipping pallet. It is about the age of your pallet. The older the age is, the easier you can remove the nails.
Now, before we begin disassembling your wood pallet, we must eliminate any safety risk first. Take a look at the wood roughness and how splintery it may become. So, unless you don’t concern on your own safety, start wearing safety glasses and work gloves.

Don’t forget to wear safety glasses!
Work gloves are mandatory whenever you work with wood pallets, unless you’re a fan of splinters.

This job also requires hammer and pry bar. So, don’t forget them

Disassembling your shipping wooden pallet

1. Loosen the nails.
Loosen nails will help you easily pull them out. Start with one slat (see image below). Use the pry bar to separate the slat from the stringer until you have pulled some part of the nails. Use the hammer if you cannot get the pry bar between the slat and stringer properly.

2. Repeat the same action with the remaining center and end part of the slat (see image below) until you free the slate. Flip over the slate to remove any remaining nail and take the reverse side to hammer them. Finish with flipping back the slat and use the pry bar to remove any remaining nail.

3. Repeat the process until all slats have been disassembled with the stringers. You’re done! Just remember to do each process carefully, especially when loosening the nails. If you do it too quickly, the pallet may be cracked.

That’s all you need to disassemble your wooden pallet. Your job now is to gather any unique idea to make something unique from this pallet.

As conclusion of this post, I need to give you some advice. Some pallets do not entirely come with natural treatment. Some of them come with chemical treatment which may become hazardous to your health. Try not to use these pallets because before they were used to carry any goods, they were treated with either heat or chemical. For this particular project, my recommendation would be HT-marked wooden pallets. These pallets were treated, just like the previous pallets. The only difference is the treatment does not involve any chemical substance. They were treated with heat and dried in a kiln.

For your own health, I must remind you that all pallets are also possible host for any insect, mold, bacteria, and other micro-organism. We never know the origin of these pallets and where they used to be until it arrived at your place. Something dangerous or hazardous may touched the pallets, such as pesticide. Remember these things when you consider using pallets on your next DIY project.

How to Build a Comfortable Pallet Sofa in 3 Simple Steps

Sep 5, 2014

I bet you never thought about building a couch for yourself. A couch or sofa is one of the most basic, yet effective types of pallet furniture you can make. They’re highly usable and rewarding to relax on after completion. Plus, it’s not very hard to make a halfway decent one for yourself. One thing to keep in mind is the location, because this thing can get real heavy real fast. These are best used outdoors, or in an open-air space, but you could always make a pallet loveseat that weighs a little bit less. Below you’ll find a quick breakdown of how to approach this diy pallet build.

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Step 1 – Acquire pallets and prep the frame

You’ll need a decent amount of used pallets for this project, somewhere in the range of 6-8 to create something like you’ll see here. The first thing you should do is sand any surfaces that will be exposed. Nobody likes splinters, and you don’t want your project to bite you. Arrange two pallets on top of one another, two on the side for armrests, and two behind to get the basic frame laid out.

Step 2 – Add surfacing

You’ll want to cover the bare surface with something a bit more aesthetically pleasing, and in this case we chose a sort of grooved plywood. Get creative and use whatever you think will work. The main places you should cover are the armrests, the top of the back bolsters, and the bottom of the front.

Step 3 – Add cushions

You may want to have something custom made for the couch, that way the cushion fits perfectly up and down. Otherwise you might end up with loose fitting cushions that move around too much. Alternatively, you could cover the frame with a fabric, and choose some outdoor cushions to sit on top. It’s up to you really. Whatever you choose will add much more charm and appeal to the overall design than the simple wood pallets could ever provide.

Step 4 – Relax!

The result will be a totally hand-made pallet sofa that has a rustic look and feel to it without sacrificing comfort. Overall the cost will be less than $100 in most cases, if not free depending on the choices you make for cushions, surfacing, and so on. This is a pretty straightforward project that anyone can complete in a matter of an afternoon with a few friends and some beers to help with the creative juices.

This Simple Trick Will Keep Your Plants Happy and Healthy

Mar 26, 2015

Gardeners tend to fall into two camps. Some have a natural green thumb, while others struggle to keep anything green alive. Water is obviously essential to the survival of any plant, but the quality can vary greatly, and a small shift in PH, or excess nutrients might be all it takes to kill a plant.

This simple recipe for eggshell water might be all you need to go from zero to hero in the garden. All you need is a plastic milk jug (or some other container) and a few crushed egg shells.

Grind up anywhere from 3-6 shells, and mix them with a gallon of water. Let the water sit for a day or so while it absorbs the shells, and then water your plants. It’s ok if a piece of shell falls into the soil, as it will slowly break down over time.

Why does this work? Egg shells are rich in micronutrients, including calcium, which acts as a natural PH buffer. It also has trace amounts of potassium and magnesium, two essential nutrients that work together to help deliver necessary food to plants. So you end up with an organic fertilizer that costs pennies on the dollar!