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Being able to make just about anything out of pallets has many benefits for off-grid living – saving money and repurposing items among them. Pallets are something we can get for free if we just know where to look.
Let’s consider how to build a picket fence out of pallets.
The first step in making your picket fence is finding the pallets you need. You may have seen them near dumpsters. If not, then another good place to look is outside of warehouses and any place that receives large deliveries of products or stores bulk amounts of items.
When you spot a good collection of pallets that do not seem to be broken, it’s time to take a closer look. Most pallets are made of pine, and in this case, that is the kind of wood you want. Pine is softer, lighter and easier to cut. You can quickly tell the difference when you pick up a pallet made from not pine, but hardwood. The hardwood is much heavier.
Choose pallets that are the same size and same color. You may have to go to more than one location to gather the amount of pallets you need to make your picket fence, depending on the length of fence you want.
When it comes to building your fence, make sure you have some pretty tough saw blades. There is really no way to avoid hitting a few nails here and there.
The easiest and simplest style of a pallet picket fence is to cut all the slabs off of the back of the pallet, then cut off the very top, leaving pointed ends on the pallet like in this picture. This way, very little assembly is required, and you can get your fence up in no time.
As you can see in the finished product, the pallets are simply held together by posts designed for wire fence. It is better to get landscape timbers instead of regular fence posts, as they are also treated wood but are much less expensive. And these wire fence posts will be changed out with landscape timbers or pressure treated two by fours soon.
After you’ve put the fence together, you will want to paint it with weatherproof paint before it rains. Consider looking around at hardware stores for paint that was mixed for someone else but then not bought. The store will usually sell it to you for half price.
So many things can be created out of pallets. And the leftover pieces can be used to make other projects or burned as firewood.
Have you ever made anything out of pallets? What advice would you ad? Share your tips in the section below:
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