Making furniture out of old pallets

Image: Ana White

I am a big fan of recycling, or in other words, making sure that something doesn't end up in the skip. I love seeing old wood being reused and the crates made by Ana Whyte are a beautiful example of this. She has the complete How-To on her website, so do have a look if you want to do this yourself.

The next example from www.folksy.com I really like, but... £180 for coffee table made from a reclaimed old pallet? (For US-based readers, that's $288 - yes, you are reading that correctly!). It doesn't look that difficult to screw four wheels under a pallet, give the thing a good varnish and get a cut-to-size piece of glass to put on top of it, does it? Although, glass can be expensive...maybe that's what has put the price up... ;-)

Image: mobius-living.co.uk

Hold on, I just came across this Studio5 website with some tutorials on it... Time to save some money, folks! Tutorial: How to make a coffee table out of a pallet

And another great looking coffee table here... And you know what? I've got the tutorial here just for you: pallet coffee table tutorial

You may be charging £180 for your own home-made creations soon!

This design is very nice too, an ottoman designed by BCK design from Canada. Looks very contemporary, beautiful and functional at the same time.

Image: Designspotter.com

The lovely Recicla e Decora blog also shows a great number of recycled pallet projects (although I can't understand the Portuguese text - I always enjoy the pictures!). What about this shoe rack...? I know, a bit basic...but an original idea.

Image: recicla e decora

One of my favourites is this rustic bench and a similar one was shown in the BBC gardening programme Gardeners World last Summer. I'm pleased to say there's a video tutorial for it on the BBC website. It's not the most glamorous looking thing, but hey, it's a pallet - what do you expect!

Image: treesandthings via GrowsonYou

Pallets are not just great for making tables and benches, London based Studiomama also makes lamps out of them.

Image: studiomama

That's it for today! But if you still can't get enough of pallets and the magic you can create with them, go and have a look on www.greenupgrader.com, for many more ideas and "The 8 best resources for Building with Pallets".

Time to dive into the skip, I think, and find some old planks...