Oh Sweet Weathered Pallet Wood Wall…

Hi Friends!

Let me start off mentioning this forewarning: this project busted my butt! Lol…ok, now we can begin. I’ve always desired some type of rustic wood wall in my home. We are always on a budget, which allows me to only complete so many things within a certain amount of time but when I can find things on the cheap, the project money can go so much further. I was lucky enough to find these pallets that we used for this project from a friend that was giving them away. Score number 1 for me! I can’t tell you how excited I was that they were already weathered. And this is where it all began. You know how it is…when you find something for free it justifies spending money on everything else for the space, right?! 😂 Let me start the pictures off by showing you my before photo. This was definitely not ever how I wanted this area to end up but just threw in some decor to fill the area a bit until we were ready for this project. I apologize in advance for the bad lighting in the before shots…cell phone shots are not always the best.

I started the whole project off by painting all of the furniture that I needed for the area. I used my homemade chalk paint made from Dove White Benjamin Moore paint color matched to Behr paint. I color match it to Behr because Behr is more budget friendly. I then sealed them with Minwax water based poly. I found these bookshelves at a thrift store and I couldn’t believe how perfect they fit (seeing as I didn’t measure the space before I bought them). I will admit to playing those cards very often. 😜 The TV console is from Sam’s Club quite a few years ago. I can’t believe that a piece of furniture can have so many nooks and crannies to get my little paint brush into. Needless to say, it was not my favorite piece of furniture to paint. I did use my Graco paint sprayer to paint the bookshelves. If you want to hear me cuss then just make me use my paint sprayer. I guess I’m not a very patient person for catering to drips from the sprayer, being covered in paint, or having my cord accidentally brush against my freshly painted furniture.😝 I will say it is a big time saver and I knew that these bookcases would have taken forever to paint with a brush. Not only was I ready to rip my hair out after using my sprayer, but during the whole process a tarantula came flying through the sky and landed right beside my bookcase (thankfully not on my head)!! 😱😱 After I screamed and almost had a heart attack, I realized that it was a dead tarantula and it was probably dropped by a bird…which doesn’t make me any more happy about the situation.

 

After I was finished painting the furniture and singing the hallelujah chorus, I pushed the bookshelves into the space beside the TV console to make sure they fit. I know, I do things backwards and sometimes forget important small details that should come before painting. 😂  You should obviously make sure everything fits before you paint it. I’m stressing myself out just by writing out this story.

 

 

Yay they fit…lol!!  My favorite pastime while I’m painting is to watch “I Love Lucy”…I’ve probably seen all of the episodes 10x. If you have ever seen the episode “Redecorating” when Lucy and Ethel are wallpapering Lucy’s bedroom…yep, I can be like that sometimes with measuring. Super funny episode. I highly recommend it.

 

I was not looking forward to that next step of painting the TV console, so I sat there and stared at it for 30 minutes before I started. And when I clapped, closed my eyes, snapped my fingers, sent positive paint vibes to the console and it still wasn’t painted on its own, I decided to get started. 🙈 And boy was I glad when this was in the past.

 

So finally what we have all been waiting for…the pallet wall!!! I first have to say that we purchased a Ryobi reciprocating saw and these saws are the best things since well, I’m not sure what…but they are amazing!!! We bought it so that we could cut the pallets apart and slice right through the nails without killing ourselves trying to get them all apart. BEST PURCHASE EVER!! They slice right through those nails just like butter. And I’m sorry that I forgot to take a picture of this amazing process but just trust me, you won’t regret this purchase if you buy one. After we cut the pallets apart, I sanded them all down. This brings out the amazing color even more that the initial existing weathered color. I thought about staining them and even tried staining one board just to see what color I liked better and we then decided to keep the natural weathered look. This was the best decision in the whole process. I love the natural weathered color!!! I tried to keep as many nails in the boards as I could. I just love this rustic look…and rusty nails just add so much character! After I sanded the boards, my husband got out our air compressor and sprayed them all down to get rid of all of the dust. When the pallets were all ready, my husband mounted the TV and then found the studs in the wall and screwed in 1×3″ boards all the way down the studs. This gives space for your wires/cords behind the TV and bonus, it is also an nice way to locate the studs when nailing the pallet boards to the wall. We only placed the 1×3″ boards in the areas where we would need to place the pallet wood.

 

 

 

After the 1×3″ boards were screwed into place in the studs, we began choosing the wood for the wall. We pretty much had to go row by row and find boards that were the same size for each row. We used a brad nailer and nailed the boards directly to the 1×3″ boards since they were all screwed into the studs.  If the boards are not similar in size it will mess up the next row. We only added pallets on the wall space that would be showing and tried to alternate the pattern in each row. We went a few inches beyond the edge of the bookcase so it would not be visible where we stopped the row. We don’t like to reminisce this picture as our Notre Dame Irish got beat that night.

 

When there was an area where there may have been a small gap, we touched up that area on the 1×3″ board with grey stain so that it wouldn’t be as visible through the wood wall.

 

 

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way it turned out. In the end, this is one of my favorite projects ever…maybe not the labor, but the result is wonderful!!

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope that this will help with your next project! Hope to see you on IG and Facebook as well! Special thanks to @shadesofblueinteriors for putting her tutorial out there to help with my project. 💗