Nursery News – Accent Wall
Last time we talked about the nursery, you were left with this:
and this:
and a promise that the accent wall for our baby boy’s room would be (and I quote) “rockin” and “boyish” and “hug-worthy”. Let me just give myself a huge pat on the back…because it is. It really is. The accent wall is everything I hoped for and more.
I know…you are just wishing you could reach through your computer monitor and slap me right now…kinda like when that girl crawled outta the television in the movie The Ring…but a lot less creepy and more out of anticipation than the desire to take my soul into Hades. But just be warned, I am an avid movie watcher and I know how to defeat evil spirits. Plus, I got Jesus on my side…and well, frankly, he would totally backhand any evil-spirited chick if they came close. We are tight like that.
Back to the point. We created a very masculine accent wall for our nursery & can’t wait to share it. But first, let’s introduce you to our inspiration:
That’s right. They are shipping pallets. And there is such a thing in the world as Pallet-Craft. I know. I googled it. Pallet-craft is reusing the wood that makes up shipping crates or pallets to make something else….like a chair or a deck or in our case, an accent wall. And since we wanted a very cabin-inspired-look-meets-contemporary-aesthetic in our nursery, we thought there was no better (or cheaper) way to get the great woods indoors…than to put wood indoors.
After a WHOLE lotta googling about the safety of using the Grade III wood that makes up pallets, we learned that some pallets are treated with pesticides & fungicides (NOT GOOD) but that you can find vendors that use untreated lumber (GOOD). If you or your vendor doesn’t know if the pallets are treated, there are certain precautions to follow when using the treated lumber. In our nursery, we followed those precautions even though we knew the lumber was not treated. Afterall, you can’t be too safe with a baby.
First, (after researching & calling local home improvement store managers to find a place that would give us free pallets of untreated wood), Jeremy picked up about two dozen pallets. Then he took his sawsall to them, cutting through the nails and giving us disassembled wood planks.
Then, he used an electric sander to remove any splinters and also to loosen any dirt or debris.
After sanding, he thoroughly cleaned each plank & removed any loose nail heads before taking them into the nursery. This is when we made our first mistake: we sorted the wood by color. It’s much faster to sort the wood by width…if you are planning on doing this at home.
After you sort it by width, then sort it by condition…like put all the wood of the same width with large cracks together. It helps. Believe me.
Ok. So now that the wood is prepped for installation (and you didn’t inhale any pesticides because you sanded & cleaned everything in a well ventilated area while wearing a mask! Good for you…you will not die. Not right now. Not from pesticides anyway.), now is the time to come up with your plan of attack. We didn’t. Mistake #2.
We knew that we would attach the planks with an air compressor and a brad nail gun…
(here’s our setting for you pallet-crafters),
but we didn’t know much else.
In fact, we started with these nails (3/4″)…
mistake #3.
And ended up using these (1″):
Afterall, nobody wants a plank to come down on Baby Will.
So we just started in one corner and nailed in a plank along the bottom of the plywood. When we got to the corner, we just measured and cut an ugly plank to fill in the gap. Rows 1 & 2 were pretty fast. But then we got to the outlet. At first, we thought we would just cut a piece to fit around it. Then my boyfriend suggested a door.
I know. It sounded crazy to me too.
But then he explained. He could cut out a piece of wood & attach it with a mini piano hinge to the nearby planks so that the outlet would be out of sight…and out of the reach of mini baby Bower fingers. Plus, it could blend into the wall instead of having a bright white outlet plate showing.
It’s not done yet, but that is what the plan is. So for now, we cut the pieces to go right to the edge of the outlet plate sides.
Then we did the same thing with the next row.
That’s when mistake #4 occured. When we installed the row #3, we didn’t make sure that the tops of the planks lined up evenly. So row #4 didn’t line up. We had to figure out a way to put a solid piece across the top without having huge gaps.
Again…boyfriend to the rescue. He just took his circular saw and cut the top of the higher plank so that it would line up with the one on the other side of the outlet.
Setting the saw to the depth of the wood plank ensured that he wouldn’t cut through the plywood underneath…just the taller plank.
Can I just say that boyfriends with accent wall solutions are hot?
Because they totally are.
In the end, it lined up perfectly and we forged ahead.
When it came to the window sill, we just cut the end of the plank to fit perfect around it.
We did avoid mistake #5 by remembering to vary the widths of the planks. Since we wanted this wall to look random (but not too random), we knew that it would be important to use the wider planks in a row every once in a while. You can see we put about seven thinner rows between our thicker rows. I think it helps create a very random (but not too random) look.
Oh – and if you are doing pallet-craft, it is important to take breaks. We took the mandatory Smoothie-King break half-way through.
After said break was over, we got back to work.
Or Jeremy got back to work and I got back to sitting down with my camera…
That’s when mistake #6 hit. This time it had to do with levelness again. When we built up either side of the window, the sides were slightly off. The left side was slightly lower than the right side.
So we decided that the best fix would be to notch out the plank directly above the window so that it could fill in the cracks. You can see here how the right hand arrow is showing you were we ‘notched’ the wood out. The left arrow shows how we had to improvise with the wood planks (using various widths) to make it even.
We did this once before on a lower piece but that time it was because we ran outta the same width planks. I don’t think it looks bad…in fact I love the imperfections of a wood wall.
My favorite imperfections are the cracks and the knots and the nail holes. They seem so manly to me. Which is good…because this is gonna be a little man’s room.
So ready for the finished wall?
Are you really really ready?
Ok…stop trying to strangle me through your computer screen…
here it is:
Pretty hot huh?
And because I am a dork, I mocked up some curtains on there so see if I liked it.
Ok. Now for all you folks out there who aren’t completely satisfied with our pallet-wood safety precautions, it doesn’t stop there.
oh no.
Now comes the nitty-gritty.
After we finished installing the wood, Jeremy whipped out the vacuum.
He made sure each little dust particle was off this bad boy.
And then we applied satin polyurethane. We decided to go with the spray type in a satin finish. This way if the plank-people-lied and we had treated wood, it would literally have to rain outside, seep through our exterior, our drywall, our plywood and our pallet wood, and then Will would have to pick away the polyurethane and suck on the seepage to be affected by the pesticides.
We felt pretty solid about the chances of that not happening. And if it does…well, Will can have a kick-diaper story about the way he avoided death when he goes to pre-K.
So that’s it folks. One very accented wall…for the grand total cost of $15. Since the pallet wood was free and we had a giftcard for the polyurethane, the 2.3 pieces of plywood & a half a pack of nails was our only cost. Not too bad, huh? I think it looks a heck of a lot costlier than that…plus we figure since it isn’t a baby-style wall, it can grow with Will as he develops into a young man.
What do you think? Does it look like a textural masterpiece to anyone else? Because it totally tells me to hug it with it’s boyish good looks. And does anyone else out there have a penchant for pallet-crafting? Or maybe you had a cheap alternative to an accent wall yourself? Was it painted on or was it a wall decal or what? C’mon. Tell me about it…nothing is hotter than an accent….wall 
Thank you for explaining all the pitfalls, sparing those who follow a few headaches. It looks great and…amen, sista!
Love it a lot! Send your boyfriend this way! And I can make a mean smoothie! Your tutorial was most excellent! Now get some real curtains in there.
Great job!
I love it. I think it would work for a grown up woman’s bedroom too. One going for a Texas rustic look!! I am wondering if I might be able to have my husband do this for me in our room.
So what about fire safety. Ever see a pallet burn? It burns fast and hot. Just saying.
So true! Wood does burn! Hopefully we will know via fire alarm if there is any chance of that happening. Until then, I guess I’ll be the only thing on fire
xo – kb
Neat project. The only thing I would recommend would be to have coated your wood with the polyurethane before installing and just do touchups in place. You don’t really want those fumes in the baby’s room. (or there is low-VOC, brush applied polyurethane.)
Oh no worries…he wasn’t in there until he was a few months old so it definitely had time to air out. But that’s an excellent tip for everyone else!
xo – kb
I love the look of your wall! Great job. Just wondering what if anything you used to clean the boards at the beginning of the project?
Like we said in the post, we did clean them. We used soapy water but there are some folks that attempted this that told me bleach worked too!
xo – kb
Excellent tutorial! Finished project is awesome. Great job. Thanks for sharing.
I love it.So wish my wonderful husband was still on earth with me to do this! Maybe my bro,will do this for me! Great job!
Hi Katie!
Based on your experience with building this rad wall and how it turned out, do you think pallet wood would work well for a floor too? I’m so curious, this turned out great!
Actually one of the biggest inspirations for this wall was a photo of a pallet floor from some loft in San Francisco I think. It was amazing. Of course, it would require a lot more sanding and possible planing but it was gorgeous!
xo – kb
Katie, were the pallets new when you got them or were they older and more worn?? Definitely using this idea and getting my ducks in a row!!
They were old. We checked around to local places to use ones that were not treated with chemicals and that they were getting rid of.
xo – kb
I love this idea and I would love to do a whole room and stain it white for a very cottagey country look.
I love this!
I love this wall! Thank you so much for posting how to do this step by step. My husband and I are attempting to re-create this beautiful wall of yours in our future son’s nursery. Again, thank you so much for inspiring us to create such a unique and beautiful wall!
I absolutely love, love, love this project! I plan to do this when we finish our basement on both sides of our brick fireplace! Thank you for posting!
Maybe I missed this in the article, but could you tell me the size of your wall and about how many pallets you needed to complete the wall.
Thanks, it is a great idea.
I can’t tell ya cause we already moved…I’m guessing it was about 12 feet wide and normal height. And we used probably a dozen partial pallets because we didn’t use some of the broken boards…we definitely got more than we needed just in case.
xo – kb
This is so amazing! Thank you for the detailed play-by-play. We will be doing this in our dining room as soon as we can get our hands on some pallets. My husbands question was, “How did you leave the old nails in for that rustic, cowboy look?” We’re wondering if you bend them down or cut them off from behind?
Thanks so much for the inspiration!
Patty
We cut ours and then made sure they were hammered in from the front…
xo – kb
I was wondering how long it took you to prepare the wood, and nail it into the wall and then spray it?
Thanks!
I honestly don’t remember Brittany. I wish I could be more help but it was three years ago so I’d hate to say it took only a few hours for each task when it took more.
xo – kb
I think this is absolutely wonderful. I am begging my husband to help me with this. Very inspiring!
There is one thing I don’t understand: in one photo Jeremy is wearing a Yankees cap, in another photo he is wearing a Red Sox cap. This is impossible. You cannot like both teams. He must pick one and stick with it!!
haha…he’s actually not a fan of either one. I think he just likes the way the hats fit…he’s got a weird head so finding the right fit is tough
xo – kb
Fantastic!!! Have been searching for pallet backsplash, wall covering ideas!! You’re info was top notch. Thank you. Looks amazing. You said you have since moved…. Bummer for baby Will…. Hopefully you replicated in now home.
a few years ago we installed a wall similar to this in our living room, only we used those cedar boards that used to be in houses in the eighties. back then they put them up vertical, but we stained them and hung them horizontal and staggered the joints. it was much easier and has the same effect. I still love this wall in or home, even after all those time.
Great project. I am thinking about doing this to the outside wall of my garage/woodshop. I am told (by a guy who deals with pallets as a business) to look for “HT” on the pallets to determine if the pallet is “Heat Treated” instead of chemically treated. 90% of pallets have a label, and most do in fact have the “HT” on them.
Thanks for the tip…I didn’t know that!
xo – kb
This is a really great nugget of information. Did he happen to say if the ones that don’t have any label on them are more likely to be HT or CT?
If it doesnt have the HT impression, the pallets were definitely not heat treated. Not sure about the chemical treated though. I would just look for the HT impression just to be safe.
Great tip!
xo – kb
do you think it would look as nice if they were stained? and would it be worth the time to do it? want to do this to our family room wall downstairs think it would look great but would like to stain the pieces and maybe even do a clear gloss on top just to make it easier to wipe down.
so I am new to pallet re-purposing and any sort of wood crafts, and I am just wondering what the air compressor was for? haha I might sound silly but I have no idea, even after googling it!
The air compressor makes the nail gun work
xo – kb
Wow, thanks for sharing yr talent!!! Congratulations!!!
Thank you for the excellent tutorial. My husband & I are going to be doing this in our new home as the living room floor. EXCELLENT !!!!!
Great job on the wall. How long did take from start to finish. Which was the most time consuming part. Thanks.
My hubs and I have been talking about making a feature wall in our family room with old barn wood. But pallets would be so much cheaper!!!
Thank you for sharing your awesome wall with us. We are now reassessing our project and it looks like we’ll be able to get it done much sooner than we thought. Again, thanks.
Muito lindo o seu trabalho, gostei muito e obrigada por ensinar, passo a passo, grata, Regina.
as a tampa bay rays fan i laugh at the pictures of said boyfriend wearing a yankmee hat in one picture and a red sucks hat in the other ,talk about bandwagon fan !!!!!!
haha…I don’t think he’s actually a fan of either…he just likes old logos. He’s more of a football guy but none of their hats fit quite right and the helmets aren’t comfortable for everyday use
xo – kb
Did this cause any problem when you were selling your house? We are thinking of doing it but will probably move in 2 years.
Thanks for the awesome tutorial!! Love it!!
Nope…everyone loved it!
xo kb
I love this idea!
I was wondering Katie if you remembered how you cleaned them, I’m so worried I’m not doing enough.
We sanded them and then wiped the boards down. They were also sealed with the poly and then vacuumed regularly afterwards.
xo – kb
I saw something on pinterest for using barn wood and molding on the walls and now I’m like, “I don’t even have to pay for wood now! Woo!!”
Beautiful (manly) wall.
I’m confused…the project looks great, but how can your boyfriend start the project in a yankees hat and end up in a redsox hat…I mean, yeah I’m excited he ended up with the sox, but the yankees? Really?!
haha..he gets that alot
xo – kb
Wow, I am so excited to have found this! I have been looking for something to make an inexpensive sliding wall out of for my studio and I think pallets are it! Any tips on attaching them
to a movable panel? Thanks so much!
-K
I would use Liquid nails and make sure the panel is thick enough to use a few screws!
xo – kb
Hey i was wondering if you stained your wood or if the wood pallets were all different colors
Thanks for the instructions. Cant wait to try this for our boys nursery
Ashley
Our pallets can in a slew of different colors. We didn’t add anything to them except the spray poly.
xo – kb
The base behind the pallets – was that existing or did you install it so that there was something of substance to air nail the pallets to?
The base was detailed in the first link of the post. Just follow that link to get the low-down on how we prepped the wall for the planks.
xo – kb
Looks fantastic!!!
I’ve taken pallets apart before, and it was very hard. Can you or your boyfriend give me a hint on how to get the planks of the pallets? I have old paneling on my wall. Now I know what I am going to do with it. I like the rustic look. Take care
We used a sawzall with a metal blade to cut the nails in the joint between the boards you want and the perpendicular support boards. Hope this helps!
xo – kb
I love this look! I have a really ugly ceiling in the sewing room I’m putting together. I spent a lot of time, last week, trying to decide a way to fix it that wasn’t going to cost a fortune and that I could do myself! I’ve found it. I’m thinking of doing this and ‘whitewashing’ it, after I get it up. I even know where I can get pallets—FREE!!!
I love this idea, but the area we want todo this in has wall shelving and a tv mount we would have to put in. Would these rip the pallets out?
Possibly. You would want to mount the shelving and mount before putting up the pallets. It would be like mounting the tv mount and shelving to plywood over drywall.
xo – kb
I’m just wondering how the boards turned out dark after sanding. After I sanded the boards they are super light.??? Please help
Our boards were really old so maybe it has something to do with the age of the boards?
xo – kb