Playing with Pallets

We recently laid sod in our front yard.  This took 10 pallets of grass, but with friends and family to help we finished in 7 hours!  We were left with 10 pallets which were in poor shape.  I have seen many people turn pallets into tables, chairs, benches, etc.  With all this free wood I knew I wanted to make something.  

I didn't have a plan when I first got started.  I wasn't sure if I wanted a table, coffee table, chair, or bench.  I finally decided to take the pallet wood and make a bench for our backyard.  

Here are the pallets before.  Like I said, they were in poor shape and many of the boards were cracked or weak.  The space between the boards were too far apart so I needed to pull the boards off, find the strong boards and nail them back down. 

I had all the boards secure and then I realized this piece was going to be too big!  So I cut the pallet in half and then I decided on making it into a bench.

I used leftover paint from another project.  I had to apply several coats because these pallets soaked up the paint!

I was thinking about making a cushion but the foam is very expensive and I decided to look for a sale first.  Since it's the end of summer I found quite a few discounted patio cushions.  I found this one at World Market for 50% of $50.  I spent more than I wanted to but I like it!

This cushion left a little extra space on the bench so I decided to add some flower pots.  The pots are painted plastic pots (free) and I purchased the flowers for $3.50 a piece.