How Shipping Pallets Have Become A Renovation Trend For Home Owners
You may have some shipping pallets scattered around your property or in your neighborhood, and want to put them to good use by creating something new out of them. Shipping pallets have become quite a home renovation trend. There are plenty of things you can do with shipping pallets, such as recycling, reusing, and repurposing them. Create beautiful and functional furniture pieces, home decors, and art pieces. Also, shipping pallets can be incorporated in your walls, flooring, ceiling, and almost anywhere in the home.
In this article, you’ll learn how shipping pallets have become a renovation trend for homeowners.
What Are Shipping Pallets?
Pallets are a piece of shipping material that can be bought from specialist vendors. You probably have seen pallets with and without stamps. Pallets without a mark or stamp are national pallets usually used for domestic transport. While national pallets are generally safe to use, it’s important to trace where the pallets really came from if you’re planning to repurpose them. Using shipping pallets with stamps to identify clear sources is highly advisable. Check the presence of the International Plant Protection Convention or IPPC logo for international shipping pallets. These pallets are made of a safe material that won’t carry plant diseases or invasive insect species through different countries. Learn more about high-quality shipping pallets at https://www.challengerpallet.com/.
Pallets Are Easy to Recycle into Pallet Furniture
You can turn a basic wood pallet into a cool, colorful piece of pallet furniture. Homeowners can recycle pallets and create pallet furniture, which makes a great design statement it makes. There are many ways you can create beautiful furniture pieces using shipping pallets, such as coffee tables, stunning kitchen islands, desks, shelves, or sofas.
Check some of the examples of shipping pallets turned into home furnishings:
- Pallet Coffee Table: Stand out with a different outdoor table by adding four wheels to shipping pallets. Create a beautiful pallet coffee table for your patio or any outdoor living space.
- Wood Pallet Patio Table: A wood pallet patio table has two shipping pallets for the legs and another two pallets for the top section. You can make it smaller or larger. You can paint it with white and turn shipping pallets to a creative outdoor furniture piece.
- Pallet Dining Table: Achieve a Scandinavian-inspired look with black painted dining table.
- Pallet Kitchen Island: You can create a kitchen island out of shipping pallets. Remove wood splinters and sand the boards.
- Wood Pallet Bookshelf: Give your highly treasured books and magazines a new home made from shipping pallet boards. You could use four pallets and extra pallet parts to create one.
Resourceful Material for Home Renovation
Shipping pallets make up a resourceful material for home renovation. You can find shipping pallets in the backyard of supermarkets, factories, and companies because this packaging is usually utilized in cargo container ships. They’re used in stacking, storing, protecting, and transporting materials, handled by equipment like pallet jacks, forklifts, or conveyors.
You can use spare shipping pallets as the main material for your next home renovation project, such as a pallet patio deck. Here’s how:
- Preparation: Gather shipping pallets by taking random sized pallets. Arrange them into a rectangle to fit in the space available. Make sure that the deck is situated in a fairly level part of your back yard.
- Make the Platform: Weed cloth should be laid down where the corners of the shipping pallets would land. Arrange the shipping pallets on top. Fasten the pallets using drywall screws and use scrap lumber to fill in the gaps. You can create an 8.5 x 12 feet deck platform using 2 x 4 inches at 8 feet long pallets.
- Add the Deck Boards: Place the 2 x 4 inches shipping pallets on top of the deck platform. Start at the front edge and place the first boards hanging over the front edge by about ¼ inch, and at each end by one to two inches. Use drywall screws to fasten the pallets to the platform. After the boards are fastened down, trim the edges to one inch of the frame underneath.
- Finish the Deck: Apply a coat of waterproofing for the finishing touch.
Pallets Are Versatile
Pallets are versatile construction materials. The wooden boards in home renovation warehouses are definitely plentiful. Majority of shipping pallets are made of environmentally friendly wood with birch-like color. They can be reused, making them perfect for home renovation and construction projects.
Check out these famous home renovation projects made of shipping pallets:
- Casa Manifesto in Chile: It was designed by Infiniski using wooden pallets. The material provides shade and ventilation because the air passes between the slats. This house was made out of 85 percent recycled, reused and environmentally-friendly material for €79,000.
- I-Beam’s Pallet House in New York: This pallet house was originally designed for a charitable purpose, as temporary housing for homeless refugees rendered by natural disaster or war. It is a 250-foot Pallet House made of 100 recycled shipping pallets. This pallet house can be assembled by five people in less than a week. It’s a durable, long-lasting housing solution for refugees than tents.
Very Good DIY Material
Pallets are an excellent resource for DIY projects requiring wood which are also eco-friendly. That’s why pallets are a trending home renovation material. It will never go out of the limelight. They are inexpensive, modular, and easy to find. Budding woodworkers, construction workers, and even artists consider pallets as an excellent do-it-yourself material. Using wood pallets, you can unleash your inner talents in woodwork, painting, and different crafts.
Here are some examples of DIY pallet projects:
- Pallet Garden Wall: Break Instagram the moment you post your DIY pallet garden wall. You can mount a full garden pallet on your house’s backyard side with plastic potting trays fit perfectly between the slots.
- Pallet Entryway Ceiling: Create a rustic look in your entryway by tacking up the wood pallet boards to your exterior porch ceiling. Nail a perimeter and field pallet boards, then replace the light.
- Pallet Bed Headboard: Make an inventive DIY pallet bed headboard using two pallets. Make sure to thoroughly pressure wash the pellets to remove any chemicals and let them dry for several days before you attach to your bed frame. Leave the wood unfinished for a primitive look or clear coat with satin polyurethane.
- Pallet Kitchen Backsplash: A pallet kitchen backsplash is a real conversation piece in the kitchen. Cut the pallet boards into 18-inch sections. Leave the wood raw for weathered effect. Also, you may choose to seal the shipping pallet boards for moisture protection.
- Pallet Radiator Cover: Radiators are unsightly home fixtures, and one way to hide a radiator is to cover it with a wood pallet. Knock off one side of pallet boards using a hammer or a pry bar. Clean it and place it in front of the radiator for a DIY instant coverage
- Pallet Compost Bin: Perfectly sized, shipping wood pallets are perfect in making compost bins. Wood pallets have long slots for proper aeration of organic matter, so compost bins made of pallets are perfect.
Safe to Use
Wood pallets are generally safe to use, but you have to be extra careful, most especially if you’re planning to use them indoors. You want wood pallets that are free of harmful chemicals that may compromise health and safety.
Check out these safety tips when reusing shipping pallets for home renovation and design:
- Know the Treatment Code: The treatment codes for pallets include HT meaning Heat treatment, MB meaning Methyl Bromide, DB which stands for Debarked, and KD meaning Kiln Dried. Debarked (DB) and Heat-treated (HT) are the important information you need to check on the shipping pallet stamp. Heat treatment or HT wooden pallets are safe to use. They are manufactured in the United States and Canada, which is a type of pest control treatment. It involves heating the pallet to 56°C to 60°C for about 30 minutes in a kiln.
- Avoid MB Pallets: Avoid MB shipping pallets because they were treated with methyl bromide fumigation, killing invasive species, such as pine beetles, which is a potent pesticide. It is linked to ozone layer depletion and human health problems.
- Know the Source of the Pallet: A geo-specific identifier comes after the treatment code, wherein the first two letters indicate the country of origin (e.g., GB for Great Britain). After which, it is followed by a regional identifier and then a unique registration number.
Affordable or Even Free to Use
Wood pallets are trending for home renovation projects because they are affordable and usually come for free. Just make sure to choose the best wood pallets which are safe and properly labeled for health and safety.
Conclusion
Wood pallets are safe to use for home renovation. You can create DIY furniture pieces, like tables, chairs, and bed frames easily. Also, you can use wood pallets as material for your patio deck, garden walls, and entryways. Shipping pallets are resourceful and cost-effective material for home renovation. They have a unique texture and look, resembling rustic and Scandinavian. Using safe shipping pellets for home renovation has become a trend because of its availability, durability, and versatility, giving your home a different touch without spending that much.