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Pallet Love – Guest Post by East Coast Creative

 

Today I have a special guest. Well, make that two special guests: Monica and Jess, the fabulous gals of East Coast Creative! But, before I let them take the reins I want to let you know that I’m secretly jealous that these two DIY gals live close to each other and team up to tackle some amazing DIY projects! Unfortunately, my ultimate dynamic duo partner lives on the other side of the US! Drat.

Hey, maybe I can convince Monica and Jess to move down to Raleigh, NC?! They could keep the same blog name (since they recently had to change it. I’ll let them explain the sticky torrid name-changing details.) I think we’d make the perfect trio because we have similar tastes in painted door colors:

And they have similar taste in fabric:

I used that same fabric as my inspiration for the pattern on my painted bamboo porch rug.

And they have a similar love of pallet boards! Without further attempts to move two families south, I give you East Coast Creative!

Well, Hey There!  We’re Jess and Monica, the blogging duo behind East Coast Creative. Haven’t heard of our blog? Well, honestly, we hadn’t either until about two months ago when The Real Housewives of Bucks County had a little name switcheroo (love drama? You can read about our drama here)! So, no matter what name we have to call ourselves, we still love all things DIY and today we’re super excited to be hanging out at Pretty Handy Girl.  Thanks for having us!

Today we’re talking pallets.  They’ve been all the rage for quite some time now, and there are some super crazy projects people have made out of them.  Ready for a true story?  Last year we got an email from someone asking us if we thought they would be able to make an entire1,200SF home out of pallets and then inquired if we happened to have plans that we could share.  We’re all about going green, but that was a tad nutty and gave us a good laugh!

So maybe we won’t be making an entire house out of pallets, but we wanted to share what we have done with them and encourage you to try something fun too!

Our first venture into the world of pallets was a pallet wall shelf.  It was one of the simplest DIYs imaginable and Jess really loved the rustic feel it gave her basement bar area.

DIY Pallet Shelf

Once we had tested out the waters, we jumped in head first with a White-washed Pallet Wall for my son’s room. The wall required about 20 pallets; we called around and got permission from all different stores to get their pallets.

White-washed Pallet Wall

We whitewashed every board in varying tones of grey, white, and even painted a few planks navy for a fun pop of color.  With the extra pallets we made a fun message board with stenciled letters.

The pallet wood, combined with the industrial light fixtures was just the feel I wanted for this tiny little bedroom.

After you’ve done one pallet wall, a second one seems like a breeze…  And so, on our Christmas Nate Show Episode I surprised Jess with her very own pallet wall.

Hide an Eyesore with Pallets

See this huge area intended for a big old box TV?  Well, there wasn’t a TV there and it was a major eyesore.  My task for the episode was to decorate for Christmas, but I just couldn’t get started before taking care of that wall.

 

To create a pallet wall to cover an opening, you just need to run vertical 2x4s as if they’re studs. Once we had those in place, we were able to start cutting and piecing the pallets.  It’s like a big puzzle, and requires a little math, but since this project needed to be done before it even started, the whole thing took me and my hubs only about 5 hours.  It can be a one day DIY for sure!

Isn’t that pallet wall so much better?  We also used some pallets that had those cool circular patterns on them.  I love the modern flair it adds to the wall!

 

After a shelf, memo board, and two pallet walls, you think we’d need a break from pallets… nope, not us! Last week we were busy working on another wood-loving project.

Barnwood Organizing Bins

We were involved in a challenge where we had to use a pallet or barnwood and make something cool. The best part about this project is that it cost under $15 and we had seen something almost identical (but far less cool-ha!) at Homegoods for $50!

Jess has this hanging in her dining room and it’s both functional and super cute.

So, are you “over” the pallet craze or are you like us and always coming up with new projects using this free resource?

We hope this peek into our pallet creations inspires you to embrace the pallet once again!  I actually have 6 new pallets in my driveway right now.  Stop over to see us sometime and maybe you’ll get to see what pallet possibility we’ve come up with this time!

Thanks so much for having us Brittany!  See you at Haven!

jess&Monica

Weren’t those some crazy cool ideas for re-using pallets? I am in love with the pallet wall in the bedroom. This has my wheels turning for a certain little guy who lives in my house and messes up all the walls with dents and dirty feet ;-). Oh Jess! Oh Monica! Want to come help me??? You could come down to North Carolina and end up loving the South so much that you’ll relocate your families and start saying “y’all” and your kids will call you “Mama!” A girl can dream, can’t she?

5 replies
  1. decoguy
    decoguy says:

    wow great house! love the wood piece all around the house. It creates a very cozy feeling that i love in a house. I was wondering about the whole wall that is covered in wood panels. were those installed on? or it came like with the house? really liking that!

    Reply
  2. Karen Buck
    Karen Buck says:

    Love this recycle idea! Gives me inspiration for a wall in my laundry room behind the washer that got wet from an overflow. Hopefully I will have enough pallets collected by fall and can get this done then. Looks like a good project for October. Was already looking into an industrial look for flooring. this is just what I needed. As always thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  3. Shirley
    Shirley says:

    Nice. The one where it looks like you covered a lot of storage space freaked me out a bit because I’m all in to storage space. Hopefully you can still use that space or open the wood part like a door or something.

    Reply
    • Vaunda
      Vaunda says:

      @ Shirley: Yep – I wondered that also, but hey, I’m a packrat, also (in addition to repurposing and hoping to re-purpose 🙂 )
      I will be visiting my sister in MN tomorrow. She loves the vintage also.

      Reply
  4. jb @BuildingMoxie
    jb @BuildingMoxie says:

    I missed Brittany’s coverage on pallets but I gotta say that I really like your pallet walls and what you are doing here ladies (hi Monica & Jess). Sorry too to hear about any “name games.” I have used salvaged lathe from plaster walls in a couple places and even once to create a geometric pattern on a ceiling (in my life before blogging), but these ideas are certainly a little more striking… I happen to have a pallet sitting on my back patio just waiting for an idea to come… and here are some good ones. thanks for posting and thanks for hosting PHG. ~jb @BuildingMoxie

    Reply

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