This pallet wood sofa has been completely built using pallet wood which has been treated post build using a wood preserver and then with a couple of coats of Danish wood oil. This pallet wood project will take around 8 hours to complete.
To build this pallet wood sofa, you will need the following
- Pallet wood deck boards around 5m in total length
- Pallet wood stringers. 4 around 50cm in length and 2 around 120cm in length.
- Wood glue
- Screws, decking screws are preferred.
- Mitre saw to cut the slats to measured pieces
- Table saw to rip cut the pallet wood posts to half along the length
- Drill and screw driver, one each if possible
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00L3XK06C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B00L3XK06C&linkCode=am2&tag=easy-palletwood-ideas-21&linkId=9c7e74dcbc1f5b58f84e74b7161bdb0e
- https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B07PB35F8T/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B07PB35F8T&linkCode=am2&tag=easy-palletwood-ideas-21&linkId=28ec7a5a23f5a0ef8906c7b5f322734b
- A wood preserver like Sika wood preserver, Danish oil or outdoor wood paint if you prefer to paint your sofa for some additional colour in the garden
- Pallet wood breaker – https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B003CT4D1S/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B003CT4D1S&linkCode=am2&tag=easy-palletwood-ideas-21&linkId=585eecf02ee5fc88e475a2323df3420a
Step 1: build wood sofa legs and hand rest
We start with building the pallet wood sofa legs and hand rest in our wood working workshop. This involves cutting the pallet wood deck boards to 8 pieces 50cm in length. Use the 4 pieces and join them to create a square box. Make sure you join the ends with glue and insert two screws after drilling a pilot hole. Do the same with the remaining 4 pieces. Leave the two structures to dry for a few hours, overnight if possible.
Step 2
Now attach the two 50cm stringer to the hand rest/leg structures. These will be used to fix the back rest stringers and also the deckboards that will form the seat. Make sure you use the glue to stick the stringers to the deck boards and use two screws at each end. The stringer should be fastened at around 20cm from the top of the hand rest. This can be adjusted based on your personal preferences as different people have different elbow to seat reach.
Step 3: build the pallet wood sofa back
Now take the remaining two stringers as we will use these to form the angles support for the back rest. Attach these two stringers to the horizontal stringers that we attached previously. Attach them at a comfortable angle for your back. When you fix the stringer to the horizontal stringer, user 3 screws in a triangle pattern. Also fix the angled stringer to the hand rest deck board using two screws. Use glue on all surfaces that are being joined using screws.
Step 4
Now its time to join the two structures together using the stringers that have been rip cut into two along the length. Position the two structures vertical to the floor and join them using the rip cut stringers using screws and glue.
Step 5
Now take the second rip cut stringer and use them to form the horizontal support for the back rest. Join the two stringer pieces to the angled back support using glue and screws.
Step 6
Now put additional supports for the seat. Rip cut another stringer into two pieces and cut each piece into smaller pieces and join them between the seat and the back rest stringer pieces. Use three pieces for the seat support and join at equal distances from each other. Use 1 piece of the stringer and fix it centrally between the backrest stringers.
This completes the overall build of the structure. Now its time to fix the deck boards on the seat and the back rest.
Step 7: build pallet wood sofa seats
Measure the depth between the two seat stringers and cut two deckboards to that size. You can decide of different patterns in making the seat. I chose to have two seats with the deckboards running from back of the sofa to the front of the sofa and the central seat deckboard running from side to side. You can have all the deckboards in the same pattern if thats easier. Which ever pattern you do, please make sure that you place the two initial cuts of the deckboards and find out how many pieces would need to fill the entire seat area. Make sure you dont leave too much gap between each deck board as that will make sitting a little uncomfortable.
Once you have all the piece ready, just use some nails and nail them to the stringers. I don’t use glue to stick them because i have observed that the wood expands and put glue just leaves some dirty residue all under the surface. Also, glue is not required as the nails and the stringers act as good supports to the deck-boards.
Step 8: build the pallet wood sofa back rest
Once the seat is ready, its time to fix the deck boards to form the back rest. Again you can decide upon a pattern. If you have a long deckboard that can run across the length of the sofa, you can just fix them to the back. I decided to cut the deck boards into two equal pieces and fix them to the back rest using nails. Again try not to leave a lot of gap between the deckboards as the will hurt the back.
Step 9
Using a random orbital sander, run over the entire structure and the deckboards to get rid of any splinters and sticking out wood. Also, round the edges of the deckboards and the wood to give a nice smooth feel to the sofa. You dont have to do a lot of grinding if you plan to place some cushions on the pallet wood sofa and I think its always a good idea to place some cushions.
Step 10
Treat the wood using the Sika wood treatment. Make sure you apply the treatment generously and apply at least 2 coats. You can then apply some paint on the sofa or you can apply some danish oil. I prefer the oil as its retains the wood texture and give a shine to the sofa that looks amazing.
And thats it, the pallet wood sofa is ready to be used. Make sure you sit on it a couple of times to ensure its sturdy. If its a bit wobbly, then try to attach some pieces of wood below the legs to remove the wobble. Its quite common to have wobbles when working with pallet wood as its not always perfectly straight.
View this video to see how this sofa was built in my wood working workshop.
