Free Pallet Ottoman

I saw a post for a pallet ottoman on Pinterest this fall that consisted of two pallets stacked together with industrial wheels underneath. That looked do-able. Pallets are all over - usually free. I tucked it into my mental 'projects' bucket and randomly thought about it whenever I'd see pallets lying around.

Then, after the Turkey Trot in mid-November, my friend Larisa was helping me finish my barn-wood table. That project didn't take as long as we thought it would, so we decided to tackle the ottoman project. Her idea included padding though - so....

Project: turn an old piece of crappy-wood pallet into a really cool, padded ottoman.

Step 1:
Find a pallet. We found ours for free at a tile shop. Mine is 34 inchs by 35 inches. ($ = 0)

Step 2:
Shore up the pallet. We moved most of the boards from one side (so it was hollow on the bottom). We then used two of these boards to fill in the sides. We wanted all four sides to be solid (the pallet originally had two sides open). We used some left over luan (a thin plywood) on top. The other boards we trashed. Loosing a few boards made the pallet only slightly less HEAVY. ($ = 0)

Step 3:
Install foam. I used 16x16x5 inch foam squares. These were cheaper than getting the big giant foam cut to the exact size. I attached the foam to the pallet with spray adhesive, but I'm not sure this actually did anything or not. I ended up using three squares of foam; I cut the three squares down to size, and used left over chunks to piecemeal the fourth square area.

I'm not sure the spray adhesive did anything to hold my foam to the base or to each other, but I used it generously, anyway.  ($ = $16/per foam square = $54)

Step 4:
I collected old towels and wrapped the wood base/sides. I wanted to soften the hard edges of the pallet base and wanted padding all the way around. I used staples to attach the towels to the bottom and sides of the pallet. After this, I needed something to "tighten" everything up. I deconstructed an old fleece blanket (you know the kind where two chunks of fleece are tied together at the edges?). A single-yard baby-blanket size was perfect. I took one piece and stapled it underneath one edge, then tightly pulled to the opposite side and stapled it down. I took the second piece, layer it perpendicular to the first, and stapled at both sides. This created a taute finish. ($ = 0)

Step 5:
Upholstery. I bought a yard and one fourth in standard width of upholstery. I did not want to sew any pieces together; my pallet size was almost perfectly proportioned to the width of my upholstery. Almost...is the key word. I did not have enough fabric to get completely all the way under the pallet to staple; on two sides I had to staple at the very bottom edge of the pallet (more photos coming to demonstrate). This was OK, except I needed something to finish or cover the selvege edge which now showed at the base of my ottoman. My initial thought was a leather strip, about the size of a belt, attached with upholstery tacks all the way around. I haunted Michael's craft story, JoAnn's fabric, Hobby Lobby and online retailers looking for this material, which apparently doesn't exist. I bought small samples of several other materials (canvas belt material, quilt bindings, etc) with no satisfactory results. In an effort to help me finally get this bad-boy done, my partner graciously offered up his old belts. Four "vintage" leather belts, complete with buckles (for a touch of whimsy) now finish the pallet. We had to improvise the attachment. The upholstery tacks I had were 7/16th of an inch: much too small to go through a layer of leather, a layer of fleece and a couple of layers of towels. We ended up using wide screws to attach the leather belt. Then we removed the actual tack part of the upholstery tack and I  used Gorilla Glue to attach the decorative tack head to the screws. Worked like a charm, except for the heavy amount of glue on my finger tips (which stayed on for about a week before it finally wore away). ($ = $33 [purchased on sale])

Step 6:
I pre-stained and waxed four wooden furniture legs before attaching them. We had some black landscaping mesh (the stuff you put down to prevent weeds from growing up through your mulch) that we used to finish off the bottom (to essentially hid the mess of layers underneath). This is totally unnecessary; this thing is so heavy no one would EVER lift it up to look underneath. ($ = $6 x 4 legs = $24)

I couldn't have purchased an ottoman for this space for what I've invested in my "free" pallet ottoman. Plus, I never would have gotten this perfect color pattern for my space. We've been using it now for the past five months and it's very sturdy; I have a four year that uses it as a launching pad between couch jumping. It's solid, so it never shifts, or moves and it's easy to care for (I just lift the vacuum up and vacuum the top occasionally).