Dressing Room Under Cottage Bed - Total Cost $3.40

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Okay, so this project doesn't really have anything to do with pallets, but it does involve making the most of items you already have available.

I purchased this Cottage Bed on Craigslist several years ago.  At the time it was painted red to be a barn for a horse themed room. We painted it purple and added flowers along the bottom.

I've been planning to build one of those nifty dress-up storage units that keep showing up on Pinterest.  Something like this: http://www.gluesticksblog.com/2013/05/a-dress-up-box-for-our-girls.html .  But the Cottage Bed takes up a lot of space in the little girls' room, so I came up with a cheaper, easier solution to the dress-up mess using inexpensive brackets and metal conduit.

I put these bags on hooks to store accessories.

One end of the bed already had shelves.

                                                    

Now the little girls have a nice space for storing their old dance costumes and Disney dress-up clothes.  The entire project only cost $3.40.  The 1/2 inch conduit was $1.56 for 10 ft., so I still have some for another project.  The brackets were $0.55 for a four pack, and the plastic end caps to finish the rough edges of the piping were $1.29.  I already had woodscrews.  This was a lot less expensive and involved less effort than building a new dress-up storage unit, and it uses otherwise wasted space on the back wall.

Chicken Tractor Made from Upcycled Pallets

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I usually start my new chicks in the brooding house we built from an old bunk bed.  Maybe I'll post pictures of that some day even though it's not made from pallets.  Then the chickens are free-ranged after the first 4-6 weeks.  I tried free-ranging my meat birds two summers ago, but that didn't turn out so well.  The Cornish meat varieties are bred to put on weight quickly.  They say they go from birth to freezer in 8 weeks.  Mine have always taken more like 10-12 weeks though because I let them range instead of packing them full of corn.  This makes for a healthier bird on my table.  Even my free-ranged meat birds grow too fast for their legs though.  This makes them extremely susceptible to predators.  Laying hens run pretty fast.  Meat birds do not.

I needed a way to protect my meat chickens while still getting the benefits of a free-range diet.  I've seen plans for several different chicken tractors online, but all of those involved buying additional materials that I didn't have readily on hand.  I decided to rig something out of the lumber and chicken wire sitting around my house and yard, and of course I used some of the pallets.

In this picture I used another pallet for the lid.  I meant to build a nice hinged lid, but I actually never got around to doing that.  Maybe that will be a project for next spring.

Storage Shed Organization System from Upcycled Pallets

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The shed is about 10' x 9', and yes, I know it could use some paint :)

Why was I even saving half of this junk?

Since we don't have a garage at our house, we have to rely on a very small shed as storage for all our random outdoor items.  We've been piling miscellaneous stuff in the shed for nearly a decade (because we're hoarders like that) without a good organization system.  Shelving is expensive, and there just never seems to be the money to buy fancy storage shelves for outside use.  Fortunately, I have a decent source of safe pallets.



I had plans to eventually build a canning shelf for my basement from some of my pallets because lack of adequate storage has been my major excuse for not canning our own produce for years.  However, I knew I couldn't build the canning shelf without first clearing one entire wall of the basement storage room.  Clearing space in the basement meant moving some items to the shed.  Did I already mention the floor to the shed was covered with random junk?

I began this pallet project by dragging all the items out of the shed.  This took a long time, and the temperature was about 95 that day.  I was able to throw away enough of the items to fill our dumpster.

I then measured the inside of the shed to find out the length of cuts I would need to make on my 2' x 4's and to determine how I should arrange the pallets.  I used wood screws with the star bit head to fasten the pallets to the 2' x 4's.  I find this type of construction much easier than trying to fasten with nails which I often bend.  I also don't have to worry about smashing my thumb over and over with the wood screws.  The screws will also make it easier to take the shelves apart and reconfigure them when we eventually buy a more attractive shed.  In my experience, the star bit does not strip the screw like a phillips bit.

 The construction of these shelving units was a quick process.  Putting the pallets together didn't take nearly as long dragging all the items from the shed.  Only one injury was sustained in the process of this project, and that was a bruise from a pallet I dropped right on top of my foot.

There's plenty of extra space for the items I need to move from the basement.

Using my free pallets and a couple of purchased boards and screws, I was able to build a shelving system to cover the entire shed at a fraction of the cost of buying one shelf from a big box store.  Not to mention, I found a purpose for the pallets which would have otherwise made their way to a dumpster.

• Total Cost:  16 - 2' x 4's at $2.35 ea. ($37.60) + 1 1/2 boxes 3 in. screws ($5.07)  + 15 pallets (FREE) = $42.67