If I had a trillion–zillion–billion dollars (basically unlimited money), there are so many things I would do! Besides doing some non-profit/mission work, my husband and I would finally go on that trip to Europe we’ve been wanting to go on and we’d buy our dream home in wine country. On the property we’d have our winery and tasting room, and a little bakery shop for me where I could make my cakes and confections. I’d go get the Audi I love (and probably a new Camaro too… and while I’m at it a ’67/’68 Shelby GT 500. I mean if money was no object, why not?). I would have a few dogs, because I can’t live without them, and I’d become a falconer, because I’m nerdy like that. Horses, duh. Lets not forget the closet full of fancy dresses and shoes, either.
I would also go crazy decorating my house (hellloooo Restoration Hardware!). With a trillion–billion dollars, there are no limits to the amazingness you could put in your house! And the wine cellar…. oh man, it would be a work of art. Alas, I have nowhere near a trillion–zillion–billion dollars… I’m not even close to a single million! So all this dreaming and decor shopping spree is meaningless. I am reduced to getting creative with my pennies, as most of us are.
That was a long tangent for what I actually wanted to share, which was, precisely, getting creative with my pennies. I’ve been wanting to decorate our house for a while now, but have just not gotten around to it. Partially because I haven’t been able to decide on a theme and colors, because I love too many styles (curse of being artsy?). It also doesn’t help that I have expensive taste (even in Home Goods I pick out the most expensive items… go figure!) and want everything out of the Resto catalog. So I’ve scoured countless DIY blogs and done tons of Pinterest-ing for projects I could make to dress up our house for a fraction of the cost. I did find a couple cool projects, and I wanted to share this first one with you that uses a wood palette because, as we know, anybody who’s anybody is doing something cool with a pallet right now.
I will insert my disclaimer here: I didn’t find this on any blog or Pinterest, and I didn’t think of this on my own. One of our family members came up with this and did it in their own house, so we stole the idea and did it too because we loved it so much. Yes, we are being copy-cats.
I’m going to show you how to make this movie shelf out of a simple wood pallet. I love this because it is fast and easy (you really don’t have to do anything crazy or have special skills) and adds a lot of character to whatever room you put it in. And its free!
So go! Go find a wood pallet and take it home. (If you’re having trouble tracking one down, try your local plant nursery or lumber/hardware store…most times they will just let you take their old used ones for no charge.)
One side of the pallet should have less boards than the other (the bottom is the side with less boards). The bottom side is where the movies will go eventually. This is a good time to lightly sand the pallet to get rid of any splintery scratchy surfaces so that nobody gets stabbed by it later.
Prop the pallet against the desired wall. The side with the most boards should be against the wall, the other side (with less boards) should be facing out/away from the wall.
This is a horrible picture. But I wanted to show you “the side with more boards” that should go against the wall.
Once the pallet is leaning against the wall, gather your movie collection, and insert into empty nooks of the pallet.
Empty nooks…
Filled!
Bam! Movie shelf!
We put ours directly under our TV.
Easy peasy, right? I love it. We just leaned ours against the wall because it is heavy enough to stay up and we don’t have kids running around that could knock it over or pull it down, but if you do have kids or it doesn’t seem sturdy enough for your liking, you could easily anchor it to the wall with some brackets from the hardware store. Our pallet seemed abnormally thick and heavy so I’m satisfied with it just leaning. Eventually, I think I might like to stain ours dark, but for now I’m basking in the glory of the naked pallet.
This is just a close-up of my coffee table with the pallet in the background.
I love owls…LOVE them. In case you were wondering.
Hope you like, thanks for stopping in! Stay tuned for my next project 🙂
~~Sparrow
Starlight.Sparrow 