How to Install a Beautiful Accent Pallet Wall, Plus Accessories
You don’t need no stinkin’ shiplap! Pallet walls are the way to go!
Chip and JoJo who? Kidding. Like everyone else in America, I love watching Chip’s crazy antics on a weekly basis. I also am inspired by Joanna’s clean, fresh and cozy designs that help create a timeless and simple look that I feel is attainable for most of us DIY’ers out there. But shiplap? Come on. Let’s dive into some pallet wood, which can be attained for FREE if you do some digging.
Find Your Pallets
In order to find my pallets, I tried going around to my local hardware stores like Ace Hardware, Home Depot and Lowe’s. Unfortunately, they don’t give pallets away for free in my area, so I wouldn’t really bother with the big box stores. I was able to snag some from new construction sites in my area, as well as asking around on Facebook for friends who knew where I could get them. I found a friend who works at a school and he was able to get me all that I wanted. I’m of the mindset of anything worth doing is worth overdoing, so I made sure I got more pallets than I needed. I got anywhere between 25–30 pallets to get the job done.
Disassembling Your Pallets
Now, I’m going to admit that this process was quite tedious and labor intensive. I did this by myself and it probably took me about 6–8 hours to disassemble 25+ pallets. I wasn’t in a rush, so I did this over several weeks time and would go outside and cut a couple pallets after work whenever I felt like it. You’ll need a good reciprocating saw (sawzall) in order to cut through all the nails. If you try to pry the boards off, you’ll just end up breaking a lot of the boards and then you’ll still need to pull the nails out. I loved having the nail heads still a part of the board, so cutting through them was the only way to go. When I finished cutting off the boards, I would stack them in my garage to keep them out of the rain and dry until I was ready to start getting serious on my installation.
Cleaning & Preparing Your Pallets
Once I got all of my boards cut off, I took them back outside and brushed off the front and back of each board. This also allowed me the opportunity to inspect all of them and figure out which ones were the best boards for my wall, and which ones would go into the scrap pile for those odd cuts I might need later on. I stacked my clean boards based on width, as I ended up with three different width board types once I was through inspecting them.
You are going to probably have a good mix of very old, gray and weathered pallet wood as well as some new, fresh unmarred pallets as well. Some people like the “natural” look of mixing the weathered gray with the brighter pine, but I really wanted to have a more even , “caramelized” look to all my boards.
I originally bought a darker, “mocha” type stain, and tested it out on an old board, and it was WAY too dark. In order to achieve the consistent “carmelized” look I was after, I resorted to a super light Puritan Pine Stain. The folks at Ace Hardware were nice enough to let me test a board in the store and open up about four cans of stain until I figured out the super light Puritan Pine was the best. As you can see from the above photo, once applied to the boards, it gave them that beautiful, caramelized look I was going for. They still have the variances in light and dark boards, but now they all have the consistent coloring I was wanting.
Preparing Your Pallet Wall Surface
Now this is where all the fun begins. But before we get started, here are some quick tips to keep in mind when preparing your wall for installation of the pallets:
First, you might want to consider painting your wall first with a darker color paint. It doesn’t really matter how dark, just the fact that it’s darker. Otherwise, you will have lighter gaps show through, as these pallets are not going to flush perfectly together no matter what you do. Unfortunately for me, I did not heed that advice before I started. So, I ended up taking a small paint brush and pushing it in between the gaps to paint the wall, and I also tried a sharpie in some spots as well.
Second, I read some articles where folks would take a liquid nail gun and apply the adhesive to the boards and install the boards directly on the drywall. I don’t recommend this. If you ever needed to remove some boards for whatever reason, you’re going to destroy your drywall.
Finally, I would highly recommend using 1" x 4" untreated pine boards to screw directly into the studs on the wall. This gives you some space between the boards and the wall if you needed to run wires for hanging a TV, etc. It also allows you to nail and screw the boards directly into that 1" x 4" railing system you just installed to ensure your pallet boards are secure and sturdy. I did end up staining those 1" x 4" support boards, but I should have stained them a lot darker. You will be able to see them through the pallets once installed if they are too light, thus my need for using a sharpie as I mentioned earlier in order “shadow in” the boards before nailing on my my pallets.
Installing Your Pallet Boards
To get started, begin at the top of the wall, not the bottom. If you have to trim the last few pieces to fit at the bottom, it’s much better that they sit at floor level where any inconsistencies will be less noticeable out in the open. You also might be able to cover up the bottom completely with furniture or other items if you have any gaps or it isn’t flush with your baseboard or flooring.
Make sure to alternate each row as you install it in order to get the uneven, “masonry” grid type approach. This will ensure that the seams on the boards don’t all line up, but rather overlap and have more of that randomly placed look. You will end up having to cut the last board on each side of the wall you end with for each row, but that wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. I would simply measure the distance I needed, and then grab my jigsaw and cut the board to the precise length I needed.
You’ll also want to make sure to think of your wood size placement as you go. Try alternating a thicker boarded row with a couple skinny board rows above or below it and vice versa. Helps create some visual interest and add even more to that authentic rustic charm.
For installing my boards, I ended up buying a really cool Brad Nailer from Ryobi. Their ONE+ tools are very handy to have, and they are cord free. I bought their Cordless Brad Nailer, which was so fun to use. It was great not having to use an air compressor and dealing with all the noise, moving the hose around etc.
One SUPER handy trick a contractor at Home Depot recommended to me was to get black drywall screws, and after I had installed a row of boards at the top near the ceiling, to put one screw in on each of the 1"x 4" vertical boards I used as railing so I would know where the studs were. This was very helpful when installing my shelving, which I’ll get into more detail a little later on.
Navigating Your Electrical Outlet
I initially was a little nervous about having to cut around the electrical boxes and how to treat the wall plates once I installed my pallet wood. After all, I was increasing my depth by having my 1" x 4" railing system installed with the pallet wood going over that to push things out even further from the original drywall surface. Surprisingly, it wasn’t difficult at all to cut around the area needed for my electrical boxes. I just roughly measured and drew on the boards where I needed to cut out the hole and let my jigsaw do the rest of the work.
Now, I will say this. You’ll need to get an “old work” electrical box extender from a place like Lowe’s in order to pull your electrical socket out from its original casing. Make sure it’s a plastic box. If those screws on the side of the outlet touch metal, sparks and fire will fly. I did have to buy 2" long machine screws to mount the “old work” box to the existing outlet box, and it worked perfectly. You’ll see in the photos below how the original electrical outlet sits flush with the drywall and deeply recessed from my new pallet wall, and then with the new “old work” electrical box extender that pulls it out and lets it sit flush with the new pallet wall.
I forgot to take a photo of the plate covers resting nicely over the pallet wall boards, but you can see the finished wall here below. This probably took me about a day (nice rainy Saturday project), as I was taking my time and due to the closet, I had to make three cuts per row instead of just one cut on each end. Remember, I started at one end with no cutting and installed the boards across the wall until I reached the end and needed to trim the final board down to whatever space was left to go flush with the wall.
Adding Accessories to Your Pallet Wall
Installing an Industrial Looking Wall Sconce
Because my son’s desk was going against this new pallet wall, I wanted to add some accessories such as lighting and shelves to help balance out his room and create some depth and interest. In keeping with the theme of old, natural and rustic, I decided to make my own wall sconce and hanging shelves out of Plumbers Pipe that you can get from Home Depot or Lowe’s.
In the examples below, you can see how I created the wall sconce. Since I don’t really know much about electrical, I didn’t want to cut into my wall to run the needed power and switch for a new sconce (or two), so I decided to simply use a lamp socket with pull chain, lamp cord, Eidson bulb, metal lamp guard, and Plumber’s Pipe! For the pipe, all I needed was the floor flange, nipple and 90º elbow. I tested the lamp socket at Lowe’s with the right size 90º elbow that I could wedge it into. I didn’t have any other ideas on how to secure it to the pipe. Fortunately, it fit pretty snugly, so I didn’t have any wiggle issues. And, since I had my light close to the closet, I was able to run the cord alongside the board next to the closet door and then underneath the boards at the bottom of the wall until I reached my socket for plugging in. You can barely notice the cord is even there!
Installing “Floating” Shelves with Plumbers Pipe & Barn Wood
The wall needed that “something” to balance out the room and give much needed depth to the wall. So, I decided to use some more plumber’s pipe and some barn wood I had on hand from a previous project. If you don’t have access to some barn wood, you can also just use some thicker pine boards cut to size from Lowe’s or Home Depot, scar up the wood a bit to add some character, and stain it. It looks just as beautiful as well.
My barn wood planks were already about 11" wide, so I went to Home Depot and got 12" long 3/4" black plumber’s pipe, cap fittings and floor flanges. For the installation, I made sure that I anchored the floor flanges to where I knew the 1" x 4" boards were behind the pallet wall that I was using as my railing system. This ensured that my shelves were secure to the wall and could hold any weighty items I might want to put on top of them.
I made sure my bottom shelf was a little over 4' from the floor. The top shelf I spaced out at around 16", which turned out to be perfect for the space.
Once my shelves and sconce were up, it was simply a matter of accessorizing the space with some cool old signage and artifacts we already had on hand. Hobby Lobby has a great selection of old signs and nick nacks where you can find pretty much anything you need. We also had some older film cameras that don’t work anymore, as well as a cool old vintage Pepsi bottle we used as props to add a little character and period interest.
Installing Plumber’s Pipe Curtain Rod
My wife now wanted to hang some new curtains that better matched the new wall, so after she ordered them from JC Penny’s, we went back to the store and got a long enough piece of 3/4" black iron plumber’s pipe, two more 90º elbows and floor flanges and voila! Industrial curtains hung to round out the accessorizing of our son’s new room!
Another Wall!
You didn’t think I’d stop there, did you? Heck no! Since I mentioned before that I like to overdo things a little bit, I had a good amount of pallet wood left over that would make a perfect little addition to our half wall in the bonus room!
Since I had a good handle on how the installation process would go from doing my son’s wall, this half wall only took me 4 hours start to finish one evening after work, and that included finding the studs, installing my 1" x 4" support railing and finishing out the pallet boards. You can see by the pictures that I didn’t take my own advice by pre-painting the wall with a darker color to help fill in the gaps. I didn’t want the extra work and was ready to be done at this point. My wife did help me with the touch up by getting the small paint brush (think kids water color brushes) and painted the wall through the gaps with some black paint I had on hand. It worked perfectly!
Overall, I am super pleased with the results. The walls turned out beautiful, and now I’m trying to think of the next spot I can add a new accent wall or industrial accessory to the house.
Oh, and thanks to “JoJo”, we did end up using “Agreeable Gray” for the new wall color in my son’s room.
Thanks for taking the time to check out my post. I hope this has been inspiring and helpful along the way. Be sure to follow me on Pinterest to see what I’m being inspired by lately.
