Karah Bunde - DIY wood pallet projects : 35 rustic modern upcycling ideas to personalize your space

of thespacebetweenblog.net

Avon, Massachusetts

to Joel, Marley, and Mico. Our life is my favorite project.

PART 1
preparation and tools

CHAPTER 1
wood pallets 101

PART 2
project tutorials

CHAPTER 2
getting crafty

CHAPTER 3
around the house

CHAPTER 4
holidays and entertaining

CHAPTER 5
in the yard

CHAPTER 6
furniture

CHAPTER 7
the finishing touches

Hi, my name is Karah and I use items I find along the side of the road to make beautiful things for my home.

Wait, did I just say that out loud?

For over fifteen years, my husband and I have been moving every few years and were always on the hunt for ways to create a home that we love in a new location. But going the traditional route of shopping for every last item can get pricey. And we all know that some items you find at the thrift shop, even with a coat of a fabulous color of paint and the most fantastic knobs youve ever laid eyes on, arent ever going to be your style or do anything to help make your space feel like home.

Instead of buying expensive items, or settling for options that just didnt feel quite right, we started making our own things and quickly found that getting creative with pallet wood and designing functional and beautiful items that are a true reflection of our style was the perfect fit for our space and our budget. Before long, I started to chronicle our adventures on my blog, the space between (http://thespacebetweenblog.net).

With only the limitations of your own imagination, you can surround yourself with things that feel like home even when youre in the space between. You know that spacethe one between where youve been and where youre going. Wherever that is at this very moment, theres no reason not to make it a space you love and that feels exactly like home.

On the blog you will find us in the midst of a full-house renovation of a 1950s conch-style home in Key West, Florida. The blog journey started in Curaao (a southern Caribbean island 35 miles east of her more popular sister-island, Aruba), where traditional shopping centers were nonexistent and our most treasured home items were borne out of things I gathered from around the beach, along the road, or out of large construction dumpsters. Now that were back in the United States, albeit the Caribbean of the United States, and undertaking a home renovation project that will leave no surface untouched, we find ourselves balancing the desire for beautification with the reality of a budget.

My very first pallet project was a simple piece of inspiring word art quickly followed by a pallet wood crate I made as a storage solution in our tiny kitchen in Curaao. These days, Im more apt to try to figure out a way to make my own version of any wooden project that I see for sale than I am to actually purchase it. Some people daydream about sunny vacations on the beach, and while Im living by the beach, Im the one daydreaming about pallet project possibilities. Yep, I sure do know how to have a good time.

Im sure youve seen wood pallets around. They are often found near residential or commercial construction sites or on loading docks of your favorite home improvement stores. They are considered trash to those companies, but over the years, through trial and error, I have found ways to transform this trash into pieces of furniture and craft or art ideas.

Be it a large or small project, when you let your creativity flow, you have the potential to make an item that will always be one of a kind and unique to your own personal style. And since our main materialwood palletsdoesnt cost anything, were talking about projects that are all nearly free. And nearly free is a popular price point around here.

In this book, Im excited to share with you a few of my favorite project ideas along with tips and tricks for finding and working with pallets. Who knows, maybe well run into each other at the loading dock of our favorite lumberyard one day.

Until then

You might be thinking that wood pallets are an interesting starting point for a book of DIY projects. Youll see with the 35 unique ideas in this book that theyre a perfect material for a whole range of itemsfrom a clock to an Adirondack-style chair. A few fun facts about the benefits of working with wood pallets are:

• you can get them for free
• theyre amazingly customizable once you take them apart
• you only need a few simple woodworking tools to create something great
• they have a built-in rustic look
• they look great in their natural statebut they hold paint or stain well, too

It has taken almost 15 yearswith 5 moves among 2 different countries and furnishing 7 homes on a real-world budgetfor me to finally understand my personal style, and that it cant always be found in a store. The ability to create our own things for a fraction of the cost has helped to make every new place feel like home, no matter where we are. My sincere hope is that you find these DIY pallet wood projects inspiring and representative of items you would gladly display around your home and maybe even make you say Booyah, I made that! along the way. They are meant to be rustic in nature (it is weathered wood, after all) and able to stand up to regular use, with the normal bumps and bruises that come along with everyday life.

These specific designs and instructions can all be tweaked and adjusted to fit your particular space. If you need to, simply add (or subtract) a few inches or feet where necessary to make the pieces fit where you want them to, helping you to create something that will make your space feel just like home to you. The instructions are open to interpretation, too. For example, I may use screws when you want to use nails, or I may use a power saw when youd feel more comfortable grabbing your handsaw. Thats cool; do what works for you.

What youre going to find ahead varies from simple Ive never held a power tool beginner ideas to projects that might have you saying, That looks a little challenging, but Ill take it one step at a time and see how it goes. Take it from me: no DIY project is without a little trial and error. I have learned my best lessons after doing something wrong the first (and often a second and third!) time. You will never meet a DIYer who hasnt experienced a project failure; its just part of the process. If only I had pictures of the very first table my husband and I tried to make! Who knew that terms like apron and stretcher were actually necessary components to the table-building process? Luckily, it was only for storage in our garage, and through the years, as our knowledge and experience has increased, our projects have continued to improve.