Bike shed & Beer crates from Pallets

[alun]

I've been collecting a few pallets recently to make a bike shed so I can get my bikes out of the hallway in my house. Today, I started putting it together. Its amazing what you can do with some free pallets, with some free time and effort.
So far, I've got the doors of the bike shed ready, I'll post up more when I'm done here. The offcuts I had left made a nice crate holder for my homebrew beers.


Unfortuntately, the crates I had were in many different sizes which made work on them slow, as I had to take them completely apart in most cases.


This left lots of nails!


One of the finished doors


The doors were overlapped panels to make them solid


With the offcuts, I measured up the sides of a beer crate


The finished crate!


Ready to go!

[Thomzo]

Excellent work. You'll be selling them next.

Zoe

[Carltonian Man]

Nice one, I'm impressed

[Sky]

Pallets are great aren't they, I'm always trying to think up new ideas for them.

[alun]

Many thanks! Its my first attempt at pallet craft. Got some sanding to do tomorrow, and I'll try and age the wood for effect if I have the time. I'll be sure to post updates on this thread. Someone gave me a load of bed slats, so I'll be turning them into a bunch of crates to hold enough bottles for my brewing.

[alun]

@Sky, Yeah I love the stuff online. I think I've scared my parents (still at the age where my parents are concerned over everything I do) with the images of sheds, beds, shelves etc. made from pallets. They are a bugger to break up though. Nursing my splinters tonight

[MidnightFarm]

Nice work alun, it's nice to see some creativity. Seeing your post reminded me about a friends TV corner unit built out of pallets by his father in law. Erm, lets just say it needed more work so it didn't look like a pile of scrap wood.
You've either got it, or you haven't! -keep up the good work.

[seasidegirl]

These look great.

We need a bike shed so I'll be watching. Unfortunately only have one pallet (so far).

[alun]

Many thanks!
@seasidegirl - the best place if you don't work somewhere that have them every now and again is taking a trip down the nearest industrial estate one evening. I was getting some nails from a hardware store just before closing time and found a pile of them freshly discarded. I also found a beautiful cable reel which I'm going to sand down and use as a coffee table when I get the space!

[Potter's Farm]

My hubby made me a lovely kitchen out of pallets. He also makes bird boxes and bug houses from them, and also fruit bowls, log boxes and all sorts of things which we than sell at markets.

[Crickleymal]

We always have a look around the local trading estates at the weekend. If the pallets are stacked neatly then we leave them alone but if they're just chucked in a heap then they're probably fair game. There's one company near us that makes steel clad buildings. They have some really useful wood outside, 9ft lengths of 6"X4" and suchlike. We occasionally knock on their door and ask if we can take some just to keep them sweet.

[alun]

Crickleymal - thats some amazing wood on offer there! I could do with some 6"x4" to get the frame of my shed built! As it is I think my dad has some 4x2 lying around which I am using. I got hold of an old double bed frame too, so that will be the roof structure sorted!

@Potters Farm - a pallet kitchen sounds amazing! I am building a large room at the back of my garden this coming summer and keep having (and searching) ideas about how I will fill it with pallet furniture

[Crickleymal]

Yes it is good. Trouble is I don't know if they're still trading. Their van moves occasionally but the woodpile seems not to have been replenished recently

[Paul_C]

hmmmm this shall definatly be something for me to look at for me. 40 bottles of beer to store and move at the moment with a definate plan to be adding to it very soon (as in starting the brewing tomorrow for another 30 odd pints) and my parents have a nice big pile of wood left froma new fence they had in. hmmmmm plans plans plans.

[alun]

I found these instructions to be quite useful for the wood sizes.
http://www.instructables.com/id/wooden-beer-crate/

Bear in mind that if your wood is thicker than 15mm, then you will need to cut longer sizes in some case.
I used this design but modified it slightly to make the crates stackable. I've got three now for my 45 bottles of grolsch for home brewing :-) I managed to get some bed slats from someone on freecycle which were perfect for crate making!