Pallet Board Pathway

Lesson learned: not everything you see on Pinterest is as easy as they say.

We wanted, or maybe just I wanted, a pathway to the firepit. I don't really like having grass poke my feet when I have flipflops on, which I wear all the time. We talked about different options, limestone pavers, gravel, mulch....and then we decided a wood path would be good. We already have quite a bit of limestone from all the free limestone we got for the other projects so we thought a darker, different texture would be good.

I searched Pinterst for different pallet ideas and found some great pathway ideas. I then searched for free pallets. Which are pretty easy to find but they aren't always in good condition and my car isn't big enough to carry pallets....or is it?

I got a friend to help me get a few pallets and worked several days to pry them apart. This process is also not as easy as the internet says. I don't care what kind pallet you have, they are all a challenge to get apart and more often than not, the boards will split. After sawing and prying boards apart, I started laying out the path.

I had nearly enough but really needed one more pallet. I went to Home Depot to buy stain and what is sitting next to where I parked? A pallet. I think,  can that fit in the car? I opened the trunk, eyed the and looked at the trunk again and decided to try. And yes, one pallet will, sort of, fit in the trunk. I mean, it sticks out and sure I didn't have any cord to tie the trunk lid down so it was moving up and down but I made it home with my free pallet!

The pathway curves in a couple of places. A straight pathway would have been easier and would have required less boards but why do something easy? Also, the curves make the whole thing look more interesting and then we have the cute places to add plants.

Because of the curves I needed extra 2 x 4's. What luck, the HOA replaced a small piece of fence and had small pieces of 2 x 4 left over. I snatched those up quick! They were exactly what I needed.

Pallets are not completely covered with wood, I decided I didn't want to deal with more pallet boards. Cassie and I talked about alternatives, we opted for fence board. Back to Home Deopt I go. I find some boards and find someone to help me cut them. He asked what I  was making and I told him. He was very nice and said I might be interested in some other boards he had. So before he cut he showed me a section of 70% off board. It's mostly fence boards that are split. Perfect! At that price I can buy more boards and discard the pieces that are split.  So I pick out some of those and he cuts everything.

Our pathway is basically a short version of a pallet sitting on the ground. I cut down the pallets to about 24 inches and left the runner 2 x 4 and the bottom boards (for stability). This means we had to dig out about 4 1/2 inches of dirt and grass, all the down the pathway. In my mind this didn't seem so bad, and this was after we dug out dirt for rocks and plants. Boy was I wrong! I started and after 2 days of cutting grass and digging  it out, I was defeated. Thank goodness Cassie came home and had time to help. It took another 2 days and help from my Aunt to fully dig out the pathway. I'm not sure if this was the hardest part but it certainly was challenging.

After the trench was dug out, I put down weed barrier cloth and then the pallet boards. Most of the boards I stained on the bottom side, this too became an ongoing chore so at one point I just gave up. I used the 2 x 4's to finish the curved areas and put down my precut fence boards.

Screwing down boards is harder than it looks. Sense a theme? I have 2 drills, one electric and one cordless. The cordless has a drill head and impact driver head. Because I'm not that strong I usually use the impact driver head. The impact driver worked well, until the battery died. I finally resulted to using both drills and using one to drill pilot holes and the impact driver to drive the screws in. This used less battery for the impact driver so I was able to finish....after 3 days!

All the boards were easy, except the corners where I had to saw at an angle boards to get them to basically be a triangle. Several days later and pounds of sweat, curves done.

Final details, stain edges and mulch. Finally at 9:30pm, on what seemed like the 100th day, the pallet board path is done!

I'm super proud of the pathway but I honestly don't want to ever make another one.

Left side of picture shows the pallet path laid out. 

Pathway partly stained and laid out. All the long boards got cut down.