With a whole summer of working from home in front of me, I wanted to create an area in our garden that could become my outside office on nice days. Unfortunately, our small patio area is in the wrong part of the garden to catch the sun during the day so we decided to create some decking. After looking online I decided that our best option would be to use pallets as a base. We are really lucky as we actually had some pallets in our shed from various deliveries I have had but you can usually find these for free or for a few pounds each in your local area. Make sure you don’t opt for lightweight ones as these will not be a good base for your decking. Creating Pallet decking is a cost-effective way of creating a brilliant space in your garden that you can personalise to the shape and size that you want.
We only wanted a small decking area so opted for 4 pallets as a base. These measured 120cm x 100cm each. This worked out well as the decking boards I was looking at were 240cm in length, perfect for two pallets next to each other. The decking boards I used were from B&M and cost £5.99 each but if you bought 5 or more you got 25% off. They are 12cm wide and with small gaps between boards to allow the decking to drain we used 16 boards along the top as well as 3 around the sides to tidy the edges.
Creating our pallet decking area
You need to flatten and prepare the area that you are creating your pallet decking. This is actually the hardest bit so take your time. Depending on the type of base you are working with you may need to lay sand or similar. We didn’t need to do this but we did lay a weed membrane underneath to prevent weeds growing though the decking.
We then laid out the pallets to ensure that we had the dimensions correct. We alternated the way the pallets laid as we had different types but if you have all of the same that wouldn’t matter.
We laid the decking boards onto the pallet base and started screwing them on. We left a small gap between each board using a folded piece of cardboard to ensure the gaps were equal. Seeing the pallet decking coming together was great.
Once this was done we had to add the edging. Position this so the edge boards go to the top of your pallet decking for a better finish. We did find that the decking board wasn’t wide enough to cover the whole of the edge so you could cut another one lengthways to fill the gap if you wanted.
We used two extra pallets to create some shelving along the back wall. This is great for resting drinks or for adding plant pots. The shelves were created using old planks from a single bed cut to size.
Although the decking boards had been pretreated we have painted it with some fence paint that our neighbours had leftover and I have to say that I love the grey colour. I never expected Pallet Decking to be so sturdy and look so good. Ok, we could have been neater with our finishing touches but for a few hours of work and less than £150 I love it and I can’t wait to work outside this summer.
We have more plans to create some other items out of pallets for the garden such as a BBQ Station which will go on our patio area next to our gas BBQ. What else should we make?