I tried using old pallets for a pantry build and it was a total waste of time

I spent a whole weekend cleaning, sanding, and cutting up three free pallets to make shelves, but they were so warped and uneven that nothing sat flat. My wife's $40 worth of basic pine boards from the hardware store made a perfect, square unit in about three hours. Why do people keep saying pallet wood is a good free option when it's so much more work for a worse result?

3 comments

3 Comments

noahpark8d ago

Exactly, the whole "free" thing disappears once you factor in your time pulling nails and sorting through cracked boards. Hardware store pine costs a bit but saves you a full day of frustration.

ryan9522mo ago

Free pallets" always sounds better than it actually is.

the_alex2mo ago

Yeah, the "free" part is a total trap, @ryan952. You end up spending a whole afternoon breaking them apart, only to find half the boards are split or full of rusty nails. I learned to only grab the ones stamped "HT" for heat-treated, since those aren't soaked in chemicals.