King Sized Pallet Headboard!~!

 

 

I finally did it!!!  I made something successful out of pallet wood!! I have been reading about "pallet projects" for months and months.  I even have a Pinterest board full of them. I was once semi successful with a small table - but not really.  I did however learn from my mistakes.  there are a million headboard tuts out there...  this is more of a "share" than a tutorial...   as I wasn't real sure what the heck I was doing.

I am very fortunate to have a cool friend that loans me his tools on occasion.  He was also kind enough to pull all the pallets apart! How cool is that.  I have taken the pallets apart in the past, so it is possible for me, but very hard.... thanks buddy!

 

As you all probably know, pallet wood is basically crap wood. So if you want it too look decent and not to "rustic" you have to sand the crap out of it!!  This was the longest part of the project and took almost 5 hours..

 

I knew that I wanted a clean, smooth look so I took the time to sand all the boards down as much as I could.   After measuring the width of the be ( a king is 72 inches) I laid  out the measuring tape and just started lining up the boards until I had enough.

I also wanted it to be tall so I cut all of the boards to be the same height as the shortest one I had.  It ended up being 36 inches tall.

 

I laid down some brace boards ( I actually ended up with more than just these two ) and drilled them from the back.

 

This is a view from the back side.

 

After I got all the boards secured I added the legs.  A few of the boards had to be screwed in from the front, but I tried to use existing nail holes so you could tell too much.

 

I only used clear polyurethane.....the different colors are the actual wood.   Due to the fact that the wood was old and kind of junky I had to put several ( I think 5) coats on.  It just sucked the polyurethane right up.  It was worth it though.   I took the longest boards I had and used them for legs.  They are just screwed into the back brace boards.  The legs extend 23 inches below the bottom of the headboard; making it nice and tall.  I did 3 legs just to be a bit sturdier.

 

 

And amazingly enough my husband and I managed to get this giant thing into the house and behind the bed.  It is not attached to the bed, just pushed against the wall by the mattresses.  I have found it is a bit wobbly so I will be attaching it to the wall with long screws from the top.

 

Please Please post pics if you do this!!!!  I would  love to see what anyone else creates!