a diy project: pallet wood accent wall

About 4 years ago I posted  wood walls, a new trend? . At that time I said building an accent wood wall was in my husband's to do list and it was going to be one of my living room walls. Oh well, it did not happened but recently it happened in the bedroom:) Last summer I decided to try using pallet wood as an accent wall in my bedroom. Collecting pallet wood from stores was easy but dismantling the pallets were much harder than I thought. Especially living in an apartment. So I decided to order dismantled pallets from Home Depot. Not all pieces were great but I had little choice but to except what I got. A few also came free from Lowe's backyard. Of course I did some homework even before I started collecting pallets. I learned that you cannot use every pallet because of the things they carry especially food (diseases) which makes sense and the way they were treated MB (fumigated with Methyl Bromide). These are "NO NO" pallets. There are a few good articles written about pallets on the internet. The ones I found were HT (heat treated) pallets which are good but I am not sure if they are MB free. I also washed them with bleached water and let them dry in the hot summer. I don't know if this helps but it sure made me feel safer:)

Loving the outcome. It is not perfect but if you are looking for perfection this is not your source for wood. I feel like I am living in a cabin. The room makes me feel cozy and warm. I still need to work on it (only the bottom row left) and also paint the remaining walls white.

Here are a few pictures of the finished wall;



View of the bedside table. Love the natural look; grays, nails, texture and patina. I am also proud of myself - I did half of the cutting and nailing. It was fun especially using the nail gun:)





Photos of both sides of the bed. Night time gives the best view.



We even framed the window with pallet wood and the result made me surprisingly happy. We made the narrow window ledge larger so it would hold bigger plants.

If you are interested in how to make one there are really good articles about it on the internet. I read some of them before I started but I also put my own twist to it. Before nailing the pallet wood on the wall, my husband put up vertical 1X3's. This made a space between the wall and pallet wood so I could hide electric cords behind the wood and also I did not want to damage the existing gold leafed design. The best trick I learned from others was to paint the wall a darker color. Because the wood panels are not even and it shows through the gaps. My wall was already dark so I just painted the vertical 1X3's.

The photo is not very clear but I hope you get the idea how the 1X3's  and pallet wood are arranged. I started from one end and went the whole way across then started from that end and did the next row down. I also tried to evenly mix light and dark colored wood.

The left photo shows the hole for the electric cord. I didn't really need the hole for my lanterns but if I decided to change the lighting in the future the wall is ready. The right photo shows how we solved the outlet. Since it was hiding under the bed we didn't pay much attention to the detail but still my hubby made a nice frame.

This is one of the HT (Heat Treated) logo that I looked for on pallets.

Well that's all folks, another diy project finished (okay, almost). I think I succeed in producing the cozy rustic feel that I wanted.

PS. For this diy project we used; a cordless nail gun, a hand saw (mostly), a zip saw, 2X3's, screws, a cordless drill, a plastic sheet for the mess and a lot of pallets.

Have a great weekend!xx