How I built a Pallet Chair

I've enjoyed recently being able to get in after a day in the office and relax in a comfortable chair made from an old pallet in the last of the days sunshine surveying my extensive estate and marvelling at the way everything is coming to life; I also made a mental note to myself tonight that I really need to take make a record of just how big certain plants grow, not just their height but also their spread. I enjoy the garden having a slightly random/anarchic feel but several plants are dwarfed and hidden by others - I guess the trick is to have planed randomness - something I think will take quite some time to master!

In a previous post I said I'd provide a run through of what I did to make my Patio set - so here goes how I made up-cycled chairs from old pallets

Step 1 - Creating your pile of Timber

First job is break up the pallets, brace yourself for this job, it's nasty - resulting in bad language, splinters and a bruised thumb from too much enthusiasm with a hammer. If you Google how to break up a pallet you'll come across many theories and ideas - one of the more interesting I found utilised a hefty Garden Status and two breeze blocks..... I'll let you pick your weapons and you'll find out what works best for you but note each pallet seems to come with it's own challenges. I used a small crow bar, a hammer and a heft screw driver - for the more stubborn pallets I used a JigSaw to cut out the usable timber and discarded the rest to a relatives wood store - pallets burn very well!

One more point worth noting - pallets come in two preserved flavours - heat treated and chemical treated, this is usually indicated somewhere on the pallet, I made sure there was an HT stamp on the ones I used.

Once the pallets were dismantled I graded the wood into piles of rough & very rough and then set to with my master construction, I'd doodled some rough design ideas and searched the internet for inspiration - I'd like to say I was working to detailed designs with all the measurement calculated - but I can't so I won't - Instead with a rough idea in my mind, in the best of traditions I made it up as I went along!

First I created the seat & backrest side frames, this primarily involved measuring the number of deck planks between my foot & knee whilst lying on the deck and then laying the wood onto the decking to get the correct angle, once the timber was marked up I then had the bright idea that a curved seat would be more comfortable than a flat one (my posterior is not the most padded as I have discovered sitting through some particularly long & mind stultifying meetings - I find bum numbness is an excellent measure of how engaged you are), to achieve this I used the jig saw to cut a shallow curve into the Seat Side frames and curved the front of the posts so there wouldn't be a sharp angle cutting against the back of the knee's.

With the seat posts cut to shape I then screwed the seat & backrest posts into position - I'd recommend using coach bolts for the joints to ensure their sturdy.

Seat & Backrest Posts fixed together.

With the side posts in place I then used a slat to join the two sides placing it just behind the back rest posts to provide a little more support, the width of the slats was once again calculated using exact scientific principles - I sat on a plank of wood then added on a good few inch's to allow accommodation of a more robust posterior than my own.

Basic Frame In place

With a couple of slats in place to steady the two sides of the frame I then turned to the front legs, I used sturdier timber taken from the pallet sides for these which would also allow reasonable support to the arms of the chair.

Front Legs attached

The tricky construction complete it was then a simple but repetitive task to add the rest of the slats, each drilled with 4 pilot holes and then securely fastened making sure the screw heads where countersunk to just below the wood surface level to avoid catching anyone sitting.

Slats in Place

Final task was to sand the chair down - splinters were likely to a real issue if not, luckily I'd bought a small  electric sander for a previous DIY task in the house - an hour or two later, a lot of dust and a lot of noise which I discovered half way through seemed to be caused by the vibration off the Sander being amplified by the decking the job was done. 

Sanded and ready to relax in

When looking for inspiration on the internet many people went to great lengths to disguise the fact that the chair was built from a recycled pallet, filling the old nail holes, varnishing or painting - personally I like the rough & ready look, showing their origins - on  commenting to my long suffering partner that I thought they looked 'honest', I was greeted by derision & laughter - I'll keep my artistic airs to myself in future me thinks.