DIY Pallet Table

Last year I showed you our current front porch situation. It was OK, but we didn't love the table/chair set that we had. I'll share more about all the changes later, but today I want to show you the awesome pallet table my husband, Eric made for us. This is Eric's project debut on the blog, so feel free to show him love in the comments :)

***A few things to notice about this awesome sequence of pictures: Eric has his safety goggles on his head instead of covering his eyes (people, don't be like him - wear your goggles!). Also, the pictures slowly go from evening to night to day again and include a change of clothing. This project was really simple, but for some reason it took WAY longer than we thought. Isn't that how it always goes?***

Supplies Needed:

• 2-3 Pallets (we picked up ours for free from a company that had a surplus)
• Pedestal base (they can be found online at Amazon or other places, but we got ours off of a desk that we found at a thrift store for $5)
• Large piece of plywood (ours is via Lowe's and was around $25)
• Prybar
• Jigsaw
• Wood glue
• Various screws and nails
• Sandpaper

 

Without further ado, here's how we Eric made the table:

Step 1: Pry the wood off the pallets. We watched an awesome YouTube video of a guy who created his very own special tool to do this... but we just had a pry-bar. It worked fine, just make sure you are careful with some of the older pieces of wood as they have a tendency to break if pulled to hard.

Step 2: Draw a circle, based on what size you want your table to be, on the plywood. Eric's method of doing this was to place a tack in the middle of the plywood, tie a string to it, and then tie the string to a pencil. Geometry at it's finest. Anyway, this worked really well.

 Step 3: Using a jigsaw carefully cut the circle out of the plywood.

Step 4: Lay out the pallet pieces on the plywood (have a dog monitor in the background is optional). We just kind of went with "what looked good" and what "fit together well." The edges of the wood should hang off the plywood at least a couple of inches around the entire circle.

Step 5: Using wood glue, glue each piece of the pallet wood down individually. Make sure to keep the pieces as tight as possible, though some gaps will inevitably occur.

Step 6: Using the power drill, place screws strategically through the bottom of the plywood.

*** If you are patient enough to wait for the wood glue to dry, you should be able to flip the plywood over and put screws in from the top. Eric didn't want to wait, so he had to use the drill from this odd angle.

Step 7:Flip the table top over, and use a jigsaw to cut the pallet pieces down to the size of the plywood. Position your blade so that it slightly cuts the tip of the plywood. If you have a jigsaw that is adjustable, adjust the blade to angle, so that you are cutting the the plywood slightly shorter than the pallet pieces.

Step 8: Sand down the edges and LIGHTLY sand the top of the plywood.

Step 9: (Not shown) Attach the pedestal base to the the plywood. How you do this will obviously depend on what your table base is like - for this pedestal it was simply a matter of screwing it together.


*** Optional: you could stain your table top to make the color of the wood more even, or even give it a coat of polyurethane to make the top more smooth.

Step 10: Step Back and Admire your work.

What do you guys think? Eric did a pretty good job, right? This table sits on our front porch and we use it A LOT in the summer. It is the perfect size and I love the rustic feel of the pallet wood.