How to Make a Pallet Potting Bench for Your Gardening Projects : Only the screws on this homemade pallet garden bench are new; the rest of the wood is recycled. For planting, the 37-inch-high work surface is ideal.
How to Make a Pallet Potting Bench for Your Gardening Projects
After assembling the bench, you can affix inexpensive or salvaged hardware to the countertop’s edge to store gardening tools. To increase the bench’s mobility, fasten casters to the legs. To retain potting soil or seed starting mix, you can drill a hole in the top and insert a metal pan. Use vibrant paints or stains to add colour to the surface.
What You’ll Need
Equipment / Tools
- Framing hammer
- Pry bar
- Measuring tape
- Straightedge
- Pencil
- Miter saw or circular saw
- Table saw
- Screw gun
- Level
- Drill
Materials
- Wooden pallets
- 2×4 lumber
- 1-5/8-inch galvanized exterior screws
- Glue
- Sandpaper
- Stain and polyurethane or primer and paint
Instructions
Take the Pallets apart.
With a hammer and pry bar, dismantle the pallet or pallets. When disassembling, take care not to harm the board ends. For the pallet potting bench countertop, choose the widest, most aesthetically pleasing boards. The width of the completed bench will depend on the proportions of the salvaged wood.
Square the edges of the boards and mark and trim away any splintered wood with a mitre or circular saw, a straightedge, and a pencil. Cut out any weak areas, such as knotholes. In the end, this results in a stronger potting bench.
Assemble the Legs
For the legs, use 2×4 timber or the pallet base. Most pallets consist of three 2×4 sections, thus in order to create a fourth leg, you either disassemble the second pallet or use screws to attach two pieces of the pallet together. Using the table saw, notch 8 inches out of both of the 2×4 pieces (for the back legs) to create a hutch top over the countertop on your pallet potting bench. Add another notched piece to reach the necessary height of 60 inches. Using screws and glue (if desired), “sister” these two notched sections together. These pieces can be cut from 1x material to fit the leg pieces’ width, or they can be from the 2×4 base pieces from the other pallet. Screws are used to attach the extension pieces and all four rear legs once they have been notched out.
Put It In Perspective
Attach a 1×26-inch board to each of the two back legs, which will determine the bench’s depth. To ensure that the tops of the boards are 36 inches above the ground, screw it in perpendicular to the inside of the leg parts. Once the other front leg is screwed into the 1x piece, the configuration should resemble a lowercase h. Repeat to obtain two similar sections that will become your bench’s left and right side frameworks.
Put the skirts on.
To support the pallet potting bench, add one countertop board to its back. Then, place the front face board, also known as the skirt, in its proper location. To match the thickness of the back legs, “sister” the front legs. To finish the frame, turn the bench over and attach the back skirt.
Blocks should be measured and placed on the rear legs in the areas right in front of the back skirt. The last countertop component will be screwed into these blocks.
Put the Countertop in Place
After selecting your countertop components, align them front to back so that they are flush, and then screw them into place. If desired, the front countertop piece may slightly overflow the front skirt. The final component needs to be trimmed to the proper length and width.
Construct the Support for the Bottom Shelf.
Attach two 1x pieces to the front and back legs of each side of the pallet potting bench, approximately 7 inches above the base, to form supports for the bottom shelf. To guarantee uniform shelf height, you can temporarily place spacers—the longer parts that are parallel to and touch the ground. Next, take a measurement of the distance between the shelf-support components’ tops and the spacers’ tops.
Put the Top and Bottom Shelves in Place
Screw in the components of the bottom shelf. Proceed with 1x material like you did with the countertop. Install the upper shelf by screwing it into the rear legs’ tops.
Install the back slats.
Add more 1x boards to create the back slats. To enable you to hook items over the boards in the future, make sure you space them widely and uniformly. To ensure that the slats are straight, use a level.
Sliced Bracing Blocks
Measure the length of 1x material, then cut 2 blocks with 45-degree ends. To prevent the blocks from splitting when you screw them into place, drill holes into the edges. Fasten the screws into the blocks.
Put Bracing Blocks in Place
The bracing blocks should be placed inside the rear legs. Screw into the countertop, the back skirt, and the back legs. From the exterior, drill the back-skirt screws in place. These blocks will stop the pallet potting bench from moving side to side.
Smooth and Stain or Paint the Surface
Use sandpaper to remove any rough, splinter-causing areas. To get rid of wood dust, vacuum or wipe down the entire bench. Paint the bench or stain it. We advise applying one coat of stain and then two coats of polyurethane, paying attention to the drying times specified on the packaging. For a durable finish, paint or prime with two coats of primer and two coats of paint.
