DIY Pallet Wood Headboard

Happy Monday!  It's back to school time for the kids in our neck of the woods, including for our daughter.  At 19 years old, she really isn't a kid anymore, but still calls herself one for some reason... especially when it comes time to fork some money over to me for her car insurance or when the ISP company told her last week that it would cost $100 to have them hook up the Internet in her very first apartment.  You know, as in...

"I should get a break on this stuff since I'm just a kid in college."

Isn't she funny!???  LOL

Last weekend, Porkchop and I moved our kid to college town.  We spent most of the day on Saturday changing the color of her bedroom from yellow with some funky green trim to a Blue Mist color (Valspar) with white trim.  Daughter's landlord allowed her to pick out the paint colors, but insisted that we use the sandstone finish on the walls.  Not that I am complaining, because it did a fantastic job camouflaging years of hideous nail-hole patching.  As you can imagine, though, many coats of paint were required.  (Have I mentioned lately how so very tired of painting I am???)

This weekend, we made the 2-1/2 hour trek again to clean up her grosser than gross kitchen, steam-clean her carpets (I am thoroughly appalled by the awfulness that my daughter's landlord expected her to move into... just saying!) and to take this DIY pallet headboard to her...

Moving into her very own place has our daughter thinking more about her 'decorating' tastes.  She never concerned herself much with these things in the past, except maybe to point out something in a store that she liked now and then.  One thing that she has discovered is that she is attracted to more rustic styles of decorating with nature-type themes (like mother like daughter, I guess.)  I believe it was my pallet beach sign that led her to this conclusion.

A few days after I shared my finished sign, she came to me and asked if we could make her a headboard out of "those pallet things" (her words exactly, lol.)  Of course, I knew it was possible and, with the pallet craze going on right now, there was certainly no shortage of pictures to show her.  (See my DIY/Craft Projects pin board for examples of pallet projects we looked at.)

I can't say I helped a whole lot with this project.  Basically, all I did was answer a few questions about design when Porkchop asked, stained some boards and took a few pictures along the way.  

Porkchop's goal was to ATTEMPT to build a headboard that would match a vanity and a chest of drawers our daughter took with her... antique pieces that he refinished several years ago.

I know you can't tell from this super grainy picture of the chest, but those furniture pieces are relatively smooth, so using the pallet wood in its original rough condition wasn't going to work.

So, Porkchop pulled out the planer.  If you've never seen one of these in action, I imagine you would probably get as big a kick out of it as I did.

A board goes in looking like this...

...and comes out looking like this.

How fabulous is that?!!!  I've decided that I'm head over heels in love with this thing!  After all, it is the reason why my assistance was barely required.  ;)

Porkchop had to run the boards through the planer a few times to remove the roughness and get the smooth finish that he wanted... and, also to make sure all the boards were the same thickness.

Some of the pallets we had were built with 2x4 frames.  He re-used them to build a headboard frame that he could nail the thinner pallet boards to.

Because we wanted the headboard to match the antique furniture as closely as possible, picking out the right stain finishes was pretty critical.  We pulled out our Minwax color chart and actually held it to the furniture itself to match it up.  Our eyes told us that Golden Oak, Dark Walnut and Early American were the finishes that matched the best.  Unfortunately, our eyes kind of lied to us.  We did take into account that the furniture had multiple woods and grains to contend with, but because our pallets also had multiple woods and grains that were different, it was like comparing Granny Smith, Red Delicious and Pink Lady apples to Golden Delicious, Fuji and McIntosh apples.  All apples, but different from one another in their own distinct ways.

Although it doesn't match perfectly, I am not at all disappointed with how it turned out and neither was my daughter when she saw it.  (If we could have our way, the furniture would look more like the headboard.)  We especially loved the shelf on top that she could eventually decorate with a mantel-style vignette.  (We temporarily set some things up there for picture purposes, to show off the shelf itself.)

And, since her bedroom is quite limited on electric outlets (as most older apartments are), she especially loved this extra little touch Porkchop added to both sides of the headboard...

He connected the two outlets on each side together and combined them into one plug that she could insert into the wall outlet.  Genius!  Can't say I would have thought of that!

I just have to tell my husband what a GREAT JOB I think he did and thank him for taking the time to make this for our daughter!  Hopefully, it will become an heirloom piece of her own that she will choose to pass down to the generations that follow her.  (A big smooch to my baby!!)

See ya next time,
Susan

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