Making something out of upcycled pallets is all the rage. In this post, I’ll show you how I used four pallets to make a DIY pallet deck in just minutes!
Anyone can make a pallet deck — you can usually get pallets for free since people always want to get rid of them. I’m also giving away all my tricks of how I paid very little for the chairs, the table, and the umbrella.
Pallet Deck that Took 10 Minutes to Built
I did this a few years ago, our backyard looks a lot nicer by now, but here is what our first little deck looked like.
If you have been on Pinterest in the last few years, or read DIY blogs, you have seen how popular DIY pallet projects are.
People make furniture out of pallet wood, or signs, or huge American flags. I wrote a whole post about that:
DIY Beds and Other Things You Can Make Out of Pallets
We inherited some pallets when we bought our house, and we got more when we got stones delivered for our stone driveway.
My ex-husband wanted to get rid of the pallets, but I had other plans for them.
Meet my DIY pallet deck.
Last summer, it looked like this:
Our “backyard jungle” and a pallet deck.
It truly looked like a jungle with tons of vines growing up the trees, and it still does a bit.
Our backyard needs so much help, it’s going to take either years or a lot of money to make it over.
It would be great if we could just hire a landscaper to do over the whole backyard, but that’s not in the budget.
It’s not my priority to spend money on my backyard. I have focused on the front yard and a small container garden on the side of the house so far this summer.
As always, my motto is that being on a budget doesn’t mean that you can’t make things pretty or at least some inexpensive improvements. You just have to be a bit creative or know where to shop.
It doesn’t have to cost much to improve your backyard a little bit every year.
DIY Pallet Deck Tutorial
Anyone can make a pallet deck — you can usually get pallets for free since people always want to get rid of them. Just look for them on Craigslist, or contact a local store that regularly gets items delivered on pallets.
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A nice backyard deck is definitely on my wish list, but for now I wanted to make a temporary one.
So a few summers ago, my young son and I pulled four pallets into our backyard, and we pushed them together to make one platform.
The pallet decks I see on Pinterest have the gaps in between the wood planks filled in, but what we did was much easier: we simply added a leftover plywood sheet to the top of our pallets, and a few interlocking floor decking tiles like these to fill in the spot that was left over, so there was no carpentry involved.
We added a left-over outdoor carpet, our plastic table and four chairs on top of it, and we had our first version of a pallet deck.
This summer, the deck got a little upgrade: I bought a 9×9 outdoor camping mat on sale for just $20 from the Christmas Tree Shops, and now it looks like this:
Here are similar outdoor mats/rugs from Amazon:
My absolute favorite is this Nicole Miller outdoor rug: the price is crazy low, and I’m in love with that pattern. It’s in my Amazon cart right now.
I really like this mat because of the tan color: it’s bigger, but still super affordable and very light-weight.
This one is a bit fancier but can be hosed down as well, which is what you want:
This company makes beautiful outdoor mats out of recycled materials:
Indoor/Outdoor Recycled Plastic Floor Mat/Rug-Reversible-Weather & UV Resistant
They have many pretty designs, but I would stay away from designs with a lot of white color so you don’t see the dirt on the rug so much.
The outdoor rug was advertised as a “patio mat,” but when it arrived, it was called a “camping mat”, was folded twice, and came in a bag with a handle and four plastic stakes, which came in handy.
Because this mat is light-weight, you want to have the stakes to keep in in place when it’s very windy.
As you can see, it works out great that the stakes are holding the outdoor mat in place.
The rain runs through the mat, and it dries fast, so it’s pretty durable for outdoors.
The potted plants are weeds that planted themselves, ha!
I bought this table online last year for I think $200, and the metal retro chairs were on sale for $10 at Target. You can find the similar ones on Amazon with that link.
The umbrella is actually a beach umbrella — it’s much lighter than a market umbrella and costs a lot less. Heavy market umbrellas can also be hard to handle.
I wasn’t crazy about how heavy most umbrella stands are, plus they are also pricey, so I found an umbrella stand made out of plastic that you fill with sand or water.
I don’t have to fill it with anything because the beach umbrella is so light. I use it mostly to keep the umbrella straight, but I did fill it with some water to make it a bit heavier.
Voila, another cheaper and more light-weight alternative:
The nice thing about all the items I bought for this DIY pallet deck setup is that they are all very light and can be put away in minutes.
I usually think about the weight of things when I buy furniture so it’s not a pain to put them away or move them around.
I like to be able to do that without having to ask someone for help.
I plan to enjoy our pallet deck this summer and in the fall quite a bit. Maybe I’ll even make it bigger and add two more pallets.
I hope the mosquitos will leave me along and let me enjoy it!
Making a deck out of pallets is definitely one easy way to make an instant deck if you want one, even in a small backyard.
What do you think of my makeshift raised pallet deck?
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