Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[Hedgeland Farms]

@ChicksnMore
That was a major win for you! I'd be like you and hate to profit from their situation, but also it's helping them in a way, getting rid of the stuff and make a little cash...
Also thanks for the build compliments!!

 

[gtaus]

I got really lucky on that...the lady I got them from had a pet resort that the pandemic killed. When she sold the building she had a huge sell. She had 30 some sheets stored flat and indoors. They're 4x8 sheets and look about 1/2" thick.
She was also selling a ton of kennel panels with heavy gauge, small holed chain link for $1 per liner foot. I payed $10 for 10' long, 6' tall kennel panels. The gates were $6 and she threw in all the connecters for the panels. That's the main part of the projects I'm working on...Ive got all the panels together now for chicken runs and I'm building coops from the osb and some recycled wood from a ramada and fence. Then I'll need to add roofs.

I hate to profit off someone's sadness, but none the less I'm grateful for my crazy good deal.

Lots of businesses fail even under normal times. I'm glad you were able to get such crazy good deals. That's fantastic. I don't think you need to feel bad about anything. Hope you post some pics of the projects you make with all that stuff.

Ah..you should have seen my pallet raised bed. It was ugggly! Yours are gorgeous. Thank you for sharing the details of building...I think I could do that.

You know, the plants really don't care what the pallet raised bed looks like. I keep telling myself that it's more important to make raised beds that are easy to build and make good use of my reclaimed wood, If I can make them easy on the eye, that's just a bonus.

None of my pallet projects I have posted to date required much skill. My whole idea was to share some thoughts and pics on pallet projects that the BYC might want to build. Also, my thinking is that a person might as well trying to build a pallet project with free wood first, to get the experience if nothing else, and then maybe someday use those skills for more advanced projects. For example, I am really happy with my pallet planter projects, but I could easily do the same build on an expensive cedar planter box.

 

[gtaus]

I've been having fun building these pallet projects, but I am quickly filling up the limited space in my garage with pallet wood. On my short list of things to build, I am adding a mobile pallet wood storage bin to hold all my pallet wood from those pallets I have broken down. I'm still in the design phase of that project, so if anyone has suggestions, please help me out. My current 2 considerations for the build are that 1) it will have to have wheels to make it moveable in the garage, and 2) that it will have to be custom fit in the storage area I currently have available.

My current idea is to make some kind of wheeled box type storage with compartments to hold short (0-16 inches), medium (2-3 feet), and long (3-4 feet) pieces of wood based on what I currently have after breaking down the pallets. Anyways, if/when I get it built, I'll upload some pics. Like most things in my garage, a little organization is needed to keep the peace and still use the garage to park our cars.

 

[Hedgeland Farms]

I've been having fun building these pallet projects, but I am quickly filling up the limited space in my garage with pallet wood. On my short list of things to build, I am adding a mobile pallet wood storage bin to hold all my pallet wood from those pallets I have broken down. I'm still in the design phase of that project, so if anyone has suggestions, please help me out. My current 2 considerations for the build are that 1) it will have to have wheels to make it moveable in the garage, and 2) that it will have to be custom fit in the storage area I currently have available.

My current idea is to make some kind of wheeled box type storage with compartments to hold short (0-16 inches), medium (2-3 feet), and long (3-4 feet) pieces of wood based on what I currently have after breaking down the pallets. Anyways, if/when I get it built, I'll upload some pics. Like most things in my garage, a little organization is needed to keep the peace and still use the garage to park our cars.

I like this idea!

 

[Hedgeland Farms]

Some more progress

And tonight was a family affair and we finished...hubby and some of the kids helped

The metal we had laying around from when we had our roof done...

 

[Sally PB]

DH wants to build something to hold all the tools that are in the back of the Jeep. He'll use some of what's left from the oak pallet he built a footlocker from, and other wood will be some of the free stuff he scrounged from where he worked. (They will have some projects for him to work on, so there may be more free wood in the future.)

I've been thinking of designing a lawn chair out of pallet wood....

 

[gtaus]

And tonight was a family affair and we finished...hubby and some of the kids helped

Great job. Thanks for sharing your progress pics on this build. Looks more like a pig palace than a pig hut! Has to be one of the nicest looking pig huts I have seen.

 

[gtaus]

I've been thinking of designing a lawn chair out of pallet wood....

Check out this YouTube search link for DIY Pallet Lawn Chair ideas. Lots of videos to give you some good ideas.

Here is a video to get you started. It has 8 different pallet outdoor furniture projects to consider.

 

[gtaus]

Here are some pics of my pallet hügelkultur raised garden bed build. First of all, here is the raised bed frame...

This is the design where the sidewall pallet planks are put in behind the 2X4 frames. That allowed me to use any pallet boards from 10-16 inches long. Essentially, I was able to get double boards out of my 22"-24" plank stock with this design.

The cross boards on top are only temporary to keep things square while I moved the raised bed to the backyard and while I will be filling it up with wood, organics, and topsoil.

I said I was using the hügelkultur method of filling the raised bed. Here is a picture of my initial logs to line the bottom....

The older and more rotten the logs, the better for his project. These logs are a couple years old.

Here is a picture of the initial layer of logs in the bottom of the hügelkultur raised bed...

You put the biggest logs in the bottom, and then toss in smaller branches and twigs on top. My raised bed is 16 inches tall, and these initial logs take up about 8 inches on the bottom.

After you put down the logs, you start dumping in smaller organic material to fill in the gaps and holes. I had a wagon full of unfinished compost rejects from my compost sifting which was perfect for this layer....

You can see the raised bed coming together pretty nicely. In theory, the hügelkultur wood will act like a giant sponge, soaking up water when available, and releasing it to the plants later when they need it. I have had much better success with my hügelkultur raised beds because I do find that they retain more moisture than my raised beds without all that wood in the bottom. My "normal" raised beds dry out too fast and require more water to keep them healthy. The water will just drain through my "normal" raised beds whereas the hügelkultur raised beds stores a lot more water in the wood in the bottom of the bed.

With this layer of organics on top of the logs, I have about 6-8 inches left to fill in the bed. I will be sifting out some chicken run compost and mixing that 1:1 with some good topsoil I bought this spring and have not yet used. Since this is the first year of this hügelkultur bed, I can expect the soil level to drop 1-2 inches over the winter as the wood and organics in the bed start to decay and compost. That is actually a feature of this type of bed. As the wood decays, it releases more nutrients into the soil while at the same time it becomes more sponge-like, soaking up and retaining even more water for the garden bed. In the spring, before planting, I usually top off my hügelkultur raised beds with a 1-2 inch fresh layer of chicken run compost. That is some good stuff.

I had expected to finish this raised bed today with the final 6-8 inch layer of chicken run compost and topsoil, but, my wagon I use for collecting the sifted compost is full of pallet wood. If you remember, I said I had to build a mobile pallet wood storage bin for the garage in an earlier post. At any rate, I need to empty that wagon to use in sifting the compost to finish this raised bed.

I will be building another pallet raised bed of this same design, maybe in the next week or so. Dear Wife is pretty happy with this pallet raised bed build and already has a list of things she wants me to grow in the new beds next spring. Although I get little to no credit for the build, I know Dear Wife likes it because she has her list of vegetables to grow in the new beds.

I might be connecting the 2 new raised beds with an overarching trellis. Dear Wife wants to grow some bitter melons which would be excellent climbers on a trellis. I'm thinking of getting one of those livestock metal panels to use as a trellis. If anyone has other ideas for an arching trellis, let me know. Thanks.

 

[ChicksnMore]

And tonight was a family affair and we finished...hubby and some of the kids helped

The metal we had laying around from when we had our roof done...

That looks great!

I've been thinking of designing a lawn chair out of pallet wood....

And that sounds fun