Using Pallets to Build a Great Yard

A home lawn is a wonderful asset. It’s so much more than simply a buffer between houses. It’s a space that you can share with family and friends to make memories that last a lifetime.

Developing your yard into an area that is uniquely suited to your lifestyle takes some time and work, but you can gradually build it into something amazing. It’s a fairly straightforward process that allows lots of latitude for embellishment and your own taste, which is what makes repurposed wooden pallets to build a great yard are ideal for some of the elements you’ll include. We have more to say about that later, but let’s begin at the beginning.

First Step: Establishing Grass

Your home may already have a good stand of grass in place, but not every grass will be suited for what you have in mind. Developers or previous owners may have managed to get a good lawn established, but it may not be the ideal lawn.

If you live in the arid southwest, you need a tough grass to tolerate the heat. A pacific northwest grass seed mix will be in order for the rainy areas of coastal Washington and Oregon, while a winter-hardy species will be ideal in New England. The grass already in place may be alive, but when your area’s most extreme conditions hit, it may not survive. It’s vital to start with a good base of grass before you do anything else.

Second Step: Developing a Layout

Your yard will be a great place to gather and play, but it takes more than just beautiful grass for that to happen. After the grass is in place, it’s time to look at the specifics.

What do you want to do in your yard? Will it be a place for kids to play or for adults to sit? This is where you generate the ideas that can be made into reality with pallets. Pallets can be used to construct a lot of these features with minimal cost and much less skill than building things from scratch. From jungle gyms to comfortable chairs, pallets are versatile enough to do almost anything you can imagine at a fraction of the cost of a trip to the lumber store.

The Final Step: Finishing Touches

It’s not enough just to have a nice chair to sit in. Colorful outdoor cushions can make them more beautiful and more comfortable, encouraging those lingering evenings of conversation that make your yard a perfect place to visit.

Pallets are incredibly easy to sand and paint, and because they’re cheap (or free), you can let the kids get involved. The youngest can learn about painting, while the older kids can get into the woodworking side by sanding, cutting, and assembling, all without the stress of worrying that they’ll damage an expensive piece of wood. What could be a better way to decorate your lawn than with items your kids helped you build? And don’t forget that repurposing pallets are even better than recycling them because it uses less energy.

With the rapid growth of idea-sharing via social media, wooden pallets have found their way into all sorts of brilliant applications. They’ve made furniture, storage devices, and countless other creations that not only save their owners the money of buying new but also put something to use that is no longer able to serve its original function.

Your outdoor spaces can benefit from these plentiful inputs. They can be fashioned into any of a long list of furniture, toys, functional items, and more, all with little carpentry skill and with the added benefit of involving the whole family in the design and assembly. Roll that into a great yard and you’ve got a fantastic way to enjoy time with family and friends.