The first step in this pallet bed project was, as always, the most tedious: taking the pallet apart. I used my recipro saw to cut the planks loose and used a punch to take out all the nails. Then I ran all the planks through my planer. Make sure all the nails are out when using a planer. Otherwise, your blades don’t last!
When all my planks were beautiful and smooth, I lay them out in the pattern that I wanted, using a cut-off saw to saw the shorter pieces to size. Once I was happy with the design, I used four planks and self-tapping screws to put all the planks together. I made the box around the pallet wood from some long planks I had lying around and fastened it to the headboard with self-tapping screws.
A quick sand with my orbital sander was all it took to get a smooth finish; the planner does most of the hard work for me! Then I whitewashed the whole piece.
I designed the heart shaped lettering in Photoshop and had it cut out on vinyl for me. After I put that on the headboard, I made 6 picture frames from some trim I bought at our local hardware store. I used my mitre saw and wood glue to put them together. Finally, I painted the picture frames to match the letters on the vinyl, and once the paint was dry, I glued them on with wood glue.
Pictures of the grandkids will go in each frame so at night grandma will go to sleep surrounded by her precious grandkids!
Alan Paul Pearson