3 Tips For Building Your Own Furniture Using Wood Pallets

If you’re interested in building your own furniture but don’t want to have to pay for new wood for your projects, one great option is to use wood pallets instead. Many businesses give away the wood pallets they get for free, which means that you may be able to find all the wood you need without having to spend any money on it. However, getting wood from pallets ready to use for furniture projects can take a decent amount of time and elbow grease. So to help you understand just what might be required with this, here are three tips for building your own furniture using wood pallets.

Carefully Inspect Them Before Taking Them Home

The first thing you need to know about using wood pallets for building furniture is that not all wood pallets will be right for every project. Because of this, you’ll want to spend a decent amount of time inspecting the pallets you have available to you before you bring them home to start working on.

When doing your inspections, look for where the pallets are coming from and what was stored on the pallet. Ideally, you shouldn’t use pallets that come from grocery stores, as they could very well have had food spilled on them that could draw bugs and other pests to them. Additionally, if the pallets have oil stains or mold on them, you won’t want to use those for your projects either.

Use The Right Tools To Prepare The Wood

Once you’ve found pallets that have clean, solid wood on them, you’ll then have to get the wood off of the pallet so you can prepare it to use for your furniture project.

To best do this, you’ll need to have the right tools available to you for removing the wood. In most cases, using a flat bar, a hammer, a miter saw, a rubber mallet, and a wire brush should do the trick. You might also need to work hard to get the fasteners through the pallets, as they can be tough to remove.

Get More Pallets Than You Think You’ll Need

Taking apart the pallets can take a long time and can result in some of the wood getting split or otherwise broken. Because this is likely to happen, it’s a good idea to get more pallets than you think you might need for your project. This way, if you wind up breaking a piece of wood or not being able to get the fasteners out, you have extra pieces that you can try again.

If you’ve been wanting to build your own furniture and think that using wood pallets might be the best way for you to do this, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how to work with this wood to get the best possible finished product.