Pallet Possibilities {Pallet Wall}

Phew! What a whirlwind of a day we had yesterday. Jess wrote all about the craziness in this post.  If you're new to our blog from The Nate Show, Crafting with the Stars, or the Intelligencer, WELCOME! We're super excited that you're here and we hope you'll hang out for a while!

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Pallet Possibilities-Pallet Wall

We finished round four of Crafting with the Stars with a pretty awesome project that we'd been wanting to get working on in my (Monica's) house for months.  When the hubs and I moved into our house 12 months ago (holy moly it's been 1 year already!) we decorated 3 out of 4 kid's bedrooms.  I wanted to wait until the little man was out of his crib and into a "big boy bed" before tacking the room. 

Well, the crib is history and we were ready to make this tiny space small, but mighty!

Jess and I have a thing for pallets.  We've written a Pallet Possibilities post and Jess shared a pallet shelves post.  Well, this time we thought we'd take it to the next level and do an entire wall of pallet wood!

Here's how we did it: (Shhh... don't tell, but this was super easy and the wood was free!)

We called around and found places that were okay with us taking their pallets.  The hard part is taking them apart and not cracking the boards.  We started with a hammer or two or three... TIP: don't buy cheap hammers.  Then, we moved to a sawsall.  It worked okay, but not great.  Finally, the hubs bought a circular saw and we were in business!

We separated out the keepers and made sure we had a good blend of various lengths and widths.  We took out most of the nails for safety, but left a few for character (we put those pieces up high on the wall)

Thankfully my hubs is pretty darn smart and helped me and Jess figure out the layout.  We placed each piece on the wall temporarily just to see the layout and get all the cuts out of the way.  We don't have any great tips on this step, just find someone that likes doing puzzles and invite them over to help!

(You might notice that between breaking apart the pallets and doing the wall that I moved from a blonde to brunette.  2 hair colors in one post... is that a blogger foul? 

Once we had the layout, we took each piece down and labeled it so we'd know where to put it back.  We gave each row a number and a letter going from left to right... 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B etc...  Then we brought all the wood down to the garage to begin the fun part... sanding and whitewashing!

We sanded the wood lightly... we didn't want to lose cool character, but we didn't want splinters for the little man either. We arranged the wood as it would look on the wall, so that we could figure out how we wanted to whitewash the wood. 

Some of the "blonde" pieces of wood needed some grey stain to make them look a bit more weathered. 

To make our whitewashing colors we just filled cups with water and added a few dabs of paint.  It was trial and error.  We used the grey-blue wall paint, white paint, and some navy (which we used full strength).  We wanted cool tones, not the warm honey ones it originally had. 

(Will I ever remember NOT to wear sweatpants for all our projects?)

Once it was all dry, we were so thrilled with the colors and couldn't wait to put it back on the wall!

Before putting the pallet wood on the wall, we added some industrial looking lights.  The hubby did this part of the job because we don't mess with electric- we have our limits! We replaced the wood, got busy decorating and then pretty much fell in love with the finished product!

How do you like it? 

There are so many fun things in this room, and we'll be giving a play by play on each in some posts next week.  We're excited to share about the fun message board made from reclaimed barnwood! (Yup, we're still lovin' the reclaimed barnwood!)

Not too shabby for a FREE statement wall eh?  My son loves his new room and Jess and my only complaint is that we didn't try this fabulous project in one of our master bedrooms! We love it!

So there you have it!  Free pallets transformed into a crazy, cool statement wall! It was free, simple, and we totally think you should try this at home!

So, what pallet possibilities are you thinking of trying?

P.S.  Did you see us on Nate?  How'd we do?  We're counting down the days to Cancun and of course will take you all with us through the blog!

Linking up to: TT & J, Show & Tell Saturday, Tips & Tutorials Tip Me Tuesday, Sundae Scoop, Sunday Showcase Thrifty Decor chick