Have you ever passed a giant pile of pallets and think…I can make something from that. Well I unfortunately can’t pass up a pallet, at certain point my husband told me we had no more room and I needed to stop with the pallet collection.

Pallets are often made from very hard woods made to withstand the the abuse. I can’t pass up a pallet, its just to many possibilities.

The first thing I made from two pallets was a back yard lounger. Here are the things I learned: taking a pallet apart SUX!!!!!!  The nails are often the twisty kind and rusty, so if you manage to get the head of the nail it often breaks apart when you try to pull it out the old fashioned way. What are we to do? There are some options that worked for me.

Option 1: Dremel (yes this is my favorite tool) and cut the head off the nail. Then, the boards slips off with a few hammer blows and you can actually either pull the nail out with pliers or hammer it in all the way. Option 2: Circular saw the boards so that you can use them as leverage to pull apart the pallet. Option 3: Do not break down the pallet.

These options might seem silly, but it really depends on what you want to make.

Option 1: Use a Dremel to cut the Heads off the Nails.

All I needed was to remove the back boards to get access to the underside of the top boards to stain and seal. I also wanted to salvage enough scrap from the underside to fill the gaps on the top side of the pallet.  That is why for this one I just cut the nail heads off and removed the boards from the back.

 

Option 2: Cut the Boards

This was a must on two heavy duty pallets I pulled together for my son’s Captain America’s training camp birthday party. Again, I needed access to both side of the top face to install the climbing wall hand holds.  Since I did not need the to salvage the underside boards, cutting them was not an issue.

 

Option 3: Don’t Break Down the Pallets

That is exactly what I did for the back yard lounger. I had no need to remove boards so … I didn’t 😉  I left one pallet completely intact while just cutting off a second pallet enough to provide a mounting point. Add a couple of home made cushions and enjoy!

 

Pallets… more then just signs and wood to use for scrap.