Rustic Pallet Wood Lamp
- By Joan
- April 21, 2016
- 4 Comments
If you’ve been following me long enough, you’ll know that I have a thing for pallet wood…OK, I love it, and I’m not afraid to admit it. My addiction really only becomes a problem when my supply is running low. Luckily, I have a good supply right now so you have not seen the last of my pallet projects.
Besides pallets I’ve also created nine lamps from upcycled or repurposed materials. I’ve made lamps from car springs, shutters, rusty pipes, railroad ties, driftwood and logs…but I’ve never put the two together and made a pallet wood lamp…that is, until now.
Actually, this lamp looks quite a bit like the railroad tie lamp but unlike the railroad tie, pallet wood is more readily available.
This project starts out with pallet wood, not the stuff on top or bottom, but the side rails. The pieces that are usually about the thickness of a 2×4.
Since I had a pallet from Coke, I thought that would make a cool addition to my lamp. I know it says property of Coke, but I promise it was a broken discarded pallet.
You’ll need 6, 27″ pieces.
Since these are all the side rails of the pallets, there will be nails. You do have a choice on how to deal with them. Either nail them all the way in, cut them off with a sawzall or pull them out. Whatever works the best for you, is perfect. All the nails, holes or stubs just serve to give this lamp a bit of character.
To get a nice solid base, alternate full pallet boards with 1/2 width pallets.
The pallet wood was attached with wood glue and 2 1/2 inch finishing nails, alternating the wide and thin pieces of wood. Can you tell my wood glue is almost gone? If you have more wood glue than I did, use it, but the pallets are still being held together by what glue there is and the nails.
Now that my block of wood was attached and dry, it was time to hit it with a sander. Try to get rid of as many splinters as possible and level off the top and bottom.
Rubbed on a dark walnut stain which really brought out the richness of the wood.
Because of all the nail holes and wood flaws, I painted on a bit more stain where the rag couldn’t reach and rubbed off the excess. Finished with a coat of semi-gloss varnish.
Because I have done so many lamps, I did a post in October of 2014 on how to wire a lamp. It has tons of pictures and step by step instructions. If you can drill a hole and screw in a screw, you can make a lamp.
I hope you get a chance to make a lamp of your own. Once you see how easy it is, you’ll be making them for everyone you know (or is that just me?)
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Wow, I am sooooo lovin this lamp. Great job!
Oh my gosh this is really neat! LOVE it! I’m saving it my DIY board on Pinterest for awesome lamps. Thanks for sharing!
Such a great looking lamp–much better than something you can purchase. Does the wire just come off the top, you didn’t put it down through the wood, did you? Thanks for sharing at the Talk of the Town link party
It does go all the way through, you just need a long drill bit.