Category: Home Decor

DIY Wood Pallet Wall Clock
Home Decor

DIY Wood Pallet Wall Clock

thriftymomsdiy

As you may know, I love wood pallets. Make anything out of wood pallets and I will more than likely buy it. My husband is probably sick of seeing them in the house AND in the shop but that’s just too bad. lol I love reusing them and adding the rough element look and feel to the pieces we already have in the house.

And talk about reusing and recycling! If you’ve ever driven past a job site that has products delivered on a wood pallet, they have more than what they know what to do with. It’s really a problem. I picked up the wood pallet for this project at the local big box store when we were pouring a sidewalk around our shop. So it was free!

Pro Tip: If you’re ever in need of a wood pallet and don’t have a place you can get one from, call the big box stores and ask them if you can have some of theirs. If you’ve ever driven behind those stores they have TONS and usually want to get rid of them anyway they can.

Here’s What You’ll Need

Step One: Cutting the Wood Pallet Down to Size

I get my wood pallet clock project started by cutting the pallet down into more manageable pieces. So I don’t waste time on measuring I just cut it as large as I can and then take the pieces that are closest to what I need. In this case I did 15 inches.

Cutting a wood pallet down to size for a wood pallet wall clock.

Step Two: Cutting the Smaller Pieces to Fit

For my wood pallet wall clock, I really only wanted three of the widest pieces I could fine so I ended up using a 15 inch long piece that was around 8 inches wide. Since the pallet was cut down to the biggest pieces it could be, most were already close to this size. I just picked the few that were the closest and moved ahead!

Measuring the wood pallet pieces

Once I get the ones that are closes to the size I need, I use a miter saw to cut them down to where they are all uniform. I also take my 3/8 trim pieces that I bought and cut those down as well. They will hold the three pieces of wood together. Since I’m using a nail gun, I ended up doubling up my trim pieces because I didn’t have a nail that was short enough.

Using a miter saw to cut a wood pallet piece down

Step Three: Painting Your Wood Pallet Pieces

Once I had everything cut down, I went ahead and used some paint I already had in the garage. I wanted it to be bright white. I used it sparingly because I also wanted to see the wood grain and the rough texture of the wood pallet. If you apply the paint on too thick you can always sand it off once it dries.

Painting the wood pallet pieces for the wall clock.

Step Four: Creating the Wood Pallet Clock

Once everything dries I then start assembling the wood pallet. I use the 3/8 trim pieces on the back and nail them to each piece. As mentioned I had to double these up since I didn’t have a nail short enough. After that I used a speed square to mark where all of the numbers would go, starting with the 12, 3, 6 and 9 to give me sort of “land markers”.

Marking the number locations on the wood pallet wall clock with a speed square

Pro Tip: Be as precise as you can be in this step because clocks are all about mathematics. If you’re off in your number marking your clock won’t tell the right time or it will consistently be fast or slow and you’ll need to reset it constantly.

Step Five: Painting Numbers on the Wall Clock

Now that I have the locations marked, I go ahead and use my stencils to place the numbers out. I used a few different methods until I became comfortable with the step but probably should have taped them down from the beginning. I say this because I had to go back and touch up some paint after I was finished.

Painting numbers on a wood pallet clock

Step Six: Adding the Clock Mechanism

One of the last steps is adding the clock mechanism. I bought this at the local craft store and was able to get a very stylish one to match my decor. It was easy to install with just a few steps including drilling a hole in the center of my clock and attaching the mechanism to the back of the clock.

Pro Tip: Be careful when you are attaching your clock mechanism. If you push the hands to hard on to the clock, you’ll put it onto the wrong timing loop and you won’t be able to use the clock properly. Follow instructions TO THE LETTER.

I had a ton of fun making this clock and received a lot of helpful hints and tips that made the project very memorable. It’s a great thing to be able to make something on your own!

Overall I saved at least $50 to $100 because if you try to buy a clock like this in any store it’s at least $50 if not $100 depending upon the size. The only thing I spent money on was the clock mechanism and the stencils. Other than that I had everything I needed.

If you have any comments, thoughts or suggestions, let me know by leaving a note below!

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Finished Towel Hook Made Out of Luxury Vinyl Plank Pieces
Home Decor

How to Make a Towel Hook Out of Luxury Vinyl Plank Pieces

thriftymomsdiy

Hello! I’m so glad you checked in to see how we made our latest project: a towel hook out of leftover luxury vinyl planks!

When we were redoing our bathroom (I’ll be posting that story here soon!) we used a wonderful luxury vinyl plank (LVP) on the floor. However, just through the natural work process, you’re leftover with many scrap pieces that you can sometimes use for the floor but most of the time you can’t because the locking mechanism is on the wrong side or it’s broken, etc. So we had quite a few small pieces.

While we were finishing our work in the bathroom I noticed that we didn’t have a towel rack. Before we just hung the towels over the shower but now that we’ve installed a beautiful glass shower stall, we didn’t want to do that. So I came up with the idea of making a towel rack out of the leftover LVP. You can see the image of the finished product below. Now that I’ve gone through all of the trials and errors, I wanted to share the steps with you!

Detailed View of Towel Hook Out of Luxury Vinyl Plank

Here’s what you’ll Need:

  1. Luxury Vinyl Plank – any type will do (just make sure you adjust for the thickness if it does or doesn’t have a padding)
  2. Plywood – cut to the size that you would like the towel hook to be. I used plywood that was 3/4 of an inch and cut it down to 20 inches long by 6 inches wide.
  3. Trim – I used a 7/8th inch flat piece of trim that was rounded on the sides
  4. Miter saw, nail gun, power drill
  5. Paintable caulking, a level, wood glue, black spray paint, painters tape, vinyl tile cutter
  6. Coat/towel hooks and hanging hooks/wires

If you don’t own all of these items, there are links in the content below showing you where you can buy them.

Making the Pieces Fit

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do a chevron type pattern with the pieces so I did some research to see exactly how they would be laid out on my plywood. After some trial and error I found that 2″ x 3″ pieces would be the perfect size and I could get a good amount of the pattern to show on my plywood board.

Pro tip: Using a vinyl tile cutter (pictured below) is the best way to get these cut down to the size that you need. I don’t have rights to show their product name in the image below but you can typically buy this cutter at any hardware store. You could also use a Roberts Vinyl Tile Cutter too. Also, when they are bigger pieces, you can use a miter saw but you must be very careful when using any sort of power tools. Either way, it’s not an exact science so I’ve come up with a way to get the cuts as close as you can but still getting the shape you want. Continue reading to learn how!

Before using the vinyl tile cutter, I had to layout my pieces the way that I wanted them. Unfortunately I deleted the picture I had with all of the pieces laid out before they were cut so I recreated it a bit with the image below. Just imagine all of these parts hanging off. I just used whatever I had that was small enough to slide under them so they wouldn’t keep falling off completely. Then I drew a line on top of the pieces, using a level and a red dry erase marker, representing the edge of my plywood piece. That in turn showed me where I needed to make my cuts. I also stuck little bits of tape on each of the pieces and numbered them, then took a picture (that I of course deleted…ggrrr!). I took a picture because I knew once I cut them, I’d need to know where each little piece went.

Once I cut them all down to size I then glued them to my plywood board using an all purpose glue that would adhere both the plastic on the back of my vinyl tile and the wood. You can use Gorilla Glue to get the job done. Just use it sparingly as this glue tends to expand when it dries.

Adding the Trim

Once I glued all of my pieces to the board, I then cut my 7/8ths in trim to fit all of the sides by using a miter saw. Our luxury vinyl plank was grey and black so I used a black spray paint on the trim to make a nice finished piece. I just used some black spray paint we had laying around but you could use Rust-Oleum spray paint. Once the pieces were dry I attached them to the plywood using my nail gun and the smallest nail the gun could take which was about 1 1/2 inches. Since the trim is pretty thin and small, make sure you set the gun to not shoot very deep, otherwise you will split the wood.

Making it Look Pretty

When you cut the vinyl pieces down they won’t be perfect. They will be either longer or shorter than what you actually want, because they’re not really made for this type of application or for being cut into small pieces. So you really just have to work with what you get. This is where the paintable caulk comes into play. I used GE Max Shield Painters Caulk as it was something we had leftover from another project.

Once I glued all of my pieces to the board and installed my trim, I then used the caulk in the areas that didn’t fully meet up. You can see in the image below where the gap is. This is why I chose to extend the black paint a little further onto the actual vinyl plank. I probably could have spent some more time using the caulking and filling in the gaps better but I really didn’t want to. lol

Even with the caulking you still have some gaps so I taped the entire inside area with painters tape. You can use Scotch Blue painters tape to complete this step. Once the area is fully taped, be sure and press down on all of the sides of blue tape. This will help make it to where your spray paint doesn’t creep under the tape. Once it dries you can remove the tape. If you get some that does creep under, use a utility knife (carefully) to scrape it away.

As a last step, I installed four coat hooks that we had laying around (I went through a hook phase when the kids were little, don’t ask!). These coat hooks are similar and I just spray painted them with the same black spray paint I used for the trim. I then installed them using my power drill. I could have pre-drilled the holes to make things easier but I didn’t. It took a little bit longer but it came out fine in the end.

All in all, this project was pretty easy to do. The most time consuming was figuring out the size of the pieces and the pattern. Once I got that done it was pretty smooth sailing. Also, painting the trim and just a little bit of the interior of the piece made the imperfections basically invisible.

Keeping it real with the shower soap scum and all!

I hope you enjoyed learning about how to make this towel hanger out of left over luxury vinyl plank pieces. If you have a comment or question, let me know!

Note: I am an Amazon Associates member which means I get a small commission off of any sales that take place from the Amazon links that are provided.

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Wood Pallet Headboards
Home Decor

Wood Pallet Headboard

thriftymomsdiy

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had the desire to make something out of wood pallets for years. If you look in the right places, you can find them either free or very in expensive.

For me, I found my first set simply driving down the road. It was only a few months after we moved to Texas and I kept driving by two places that had stacks of wood pallets out front. I knew I wanted to do something with wood pallets but I didn’t know what at the time. I’m inherently a introvert so it took me some time to gather up my courage and inquire about the pallets and once I did, I wasn’t disappointed. One place was a home that was getting rid of them, so they were free! Another place was a co-op type place that sold feed and tools for farmers. They sold their wood pallets for $4 per pallet. Naturally, I went with the free ones. 🙂

What You Will Need

  1. Wood pallets
  2. 2x4s
  3. Miter saw & power drill
  4. Screws
  5. Paint (whatever color you want, I just used white I had laying around)

Here are the steps I took to make a wood pallet headboard. Please note, these headboards are intended to fit a twin size mattress. Wood pallets actually are the perfect size for a twin bed. However, I often have company over so I made two and put them together to make a king size wood pallet headboard.

Step One: Wash off and disinfect (if needed) your wood pallets

Here’s a picture of how they originally looked when my son and I picked them up. They were in pretty rough shape but we hosed them off and got all of the dirt and mud off of the wood pallets. We also sprayed them down with mold remover because there were a few places that had mold and bugs on them. Then we left them outside to dry.

Step 2: Cut legs to mount to the wood pallets

Next, I took some left over 2x4s that we had in the garage. I then measured them and cut them down to use as legs. To get the height I needed to use, I measured all of the other headboards we had in the house and took the average height. The average total height for our headboards was 55 inches. So for my wood pallets I cut the 2x4s down to 20 inches high using my miter saw and left 7 inches showing at the bottom to lift the wood pallet up enough to hit the 55 inches that I wanted.

Step Three: Mount the legs to the wood pallets

After I cut the 2x4s down to 20 inches I played with the positioning to make it to where I didn’t go over 55 inches total in height. I then just used some screws that we already had and a power drill with the needed bit. Since this was going to be mounted on the inside of the wood pallet, I wasn’t too concerned about the “look” that the screws would leave.

Note: the placement of the 2x4s in the below picture is not where I ended up putting them. For my measurements, I left 7 inches of the leg showing at the bottom to get a total of 55 inches in height after the wood pallet measurement. Not all wood pallets are the same size so you’ll need to adjust your measurements to fit what you want. The final height of 55 inches is just what I wanted and nothing specifically told me it had to be that tall.

Below is a picture of how they looked after they were mounted onto the wood pallet. I LOVED how the wood pallet was “beat up” already. Honestly, it was almost a little too beat up in some places but I had four pallets to choose from so I picked the less banged up one. I also removed and replaced a few pieces, where needed, but nothing major. If it was warped, or bent, it stayed warped and bent. I wasn’t too picky because I knew I’d be painting them in some fashion. I just made sure nothing sharp or dangerous was sticking out because our kids would be around them.

Step 4: Painting wood pallets

In regards to the color, I knew I didn’t want to leave the wood pallet in the condition that it was in but I wasn’t sure what color I wanted to paint them or what style to use. Thankfully, the wood pallets dictated everything that was going to happen to them anyway so I just listened. The reason why I say that is because when I tried to paint them, the wood pallet grain was so dominant that I would have needed to add coat after coat of paint which would take hours. Too many hours!

So I ended up using white paint because frankly, I had a gallon of white paint sitting around. It wasn’t anything special, just something I had left over from another project. So I used a regular 2 inch brush and started to paint. The moment I put the paint on the wood pallet, the pallet took over and showed me what it was going to accept. As you can see, I got a wonderful “white wash” finish without even trying. I just simply started with a little bit of paint and spread it out as far as I could make it go. I did this for two reasons. One I’m thrifty and don’t want to waste a lot of paint right of the bat and second, the less coats of paint the better because I have a job, two kids, a hubby and a dog…I don’t need to spend days and days painting something.

Step 5: Letting the wood pallet dry

After I painted all of the wood pallet (front, back and the legs) I set it out in the sun to fully dry. I wasn’t sure how much of the paint would absorb into the wood but I didn’t want to wait days to find that out either. It really didn’t take long at all because after a few hours it was fully dry.

Because the legs were 2x4s and not the same wood from the wood pallet they look a little different because they took the paint different but I honestly don’t care because they are going to be behind a bedframe.

Step 6: Installing the wood pallet frames

Next, we placed them into our kids play room. As mentioned before I made two because we typically have family come stay with us. We also have another twin bed that we have in storage so whenever our family come to visit we just get it out of storage and set it up as a king size mattress with a mattress converter that we bought. In the meantime it acts as a great day bed for the kids to hangout on when they play their video games. I did end up installing large stick-on felt pads (the ones you use for the bottoms of chairs or on cabinet doors so they don’t bang) so that when they rested on the wall they didn’t damage it. I also didn’t connect them to the bed frames because I knew we’d be using them in different configurations. I just simply leaned them up against the wall with enough of an angle that they wouldn’t fall forward but not too much to where they would stick out too far.

Also, notice the two wood pallet headboards don’t match? I wasn’t concerned with it because honestly, no two wood pallets are going to match and I don’t have enough time in the day to find a free set that are exact. It just is what it is and I LOVE the outcome. We’ve had them for several years now and they’ve never let us down.

Finished Wood Pallet Headboards

I hope you enjoy making your wood pallet headboards as much as I did. I probably spent under $10 making these if you count the cost of the materials we had bought previously and used on this project. If you have any questions or comments, let me know!

Note: I am an Amazon Associates member which means I get a small commission off of any sales that take place from the Amazon links that are provided.

Watch our wood pallet headboard tutorial on YouTube: