DIY Octagon Dining Room Table…with a farmhouse base!
Home Improvement: Adding Column Supports to Counter Overhang (PLUS finished kitchen photos!)
Today’s contributor is Sara from The Aqua House. All posts written by Sara for Make It and Love It can be found HERE.
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Hi! Its Sara from The Aqua House and I’m here today with a fun little DIY Pallet Spice Rack. You may have noticed that I’ve done a few pallet projects (here and here). It seems like my husband is always bringing me home pallets thinking that I’ll be able to do something “crafty” with them, ha!
This time I decided to make a spice rack to clear up some space in my cupboards. I don’t know about you, but I am always looking for ways to create more space and function in my kitchen. Unfortunately, when we were building our house, I didn’t realize just how small the kitchen would be! Ugh! I seriously have hardly any cabinet space. One way I decided to clear up some space was to make a spice rack that I could hang on the back of my pantry door. I got to use up some more pallet wood (and clear out space in my garage, yay!) and empty out a cupboard that I can now put other things in… win, win!
This little rack is seriously so easy to make and you can customize it to fit your exact needs. I made my bottom shelf larger to hold my bigger Costco sized spices and the top shelves smaller to fit my spice jars. Really, its all up to you (and your spice containers, ha!) as to how many shelves you want to have and how far apart you want them spaced. In fact, I originally built this spice rack to have only three shelves and then I went back in and added a fourth shelf because my spice jars were smaller than I thought.
The best part is you can hang this anywhere in your kitchen! My pantry door is actually quite close to my stove so all I have to do is reach behind me when I’m cooking and grab the spices that I need. This would also look fabulous hanging on a nearby wall!
Are you ready to make your own DIY Pallet Spice Rack?
For this project you will need:
Pallets come in all shapes and sizes and the wood I used came from a smaller pallet so it was skinnier. If your pallet is larger you may need to use a table saw to cut the wood down.
The first step is to pull the pallet apart. This is definitely the most time consuming part! For this step you will just need a simple hammer to help pull the nails out…and an extra dose of patience…and maybe strength.
Now you will need to sort through your pieces to find the ones that are in the best shape and have the look you are going for. I was trying to make mine look like an old farmhouse crate so I tried to choose more weathered-looking pieces. After you find the pieces that you want to use, its time to figure out how many shelves you will need. The dimensions I will give you are for the rack I made, but (as always) you can customize this to fit your needs. If you remember, I said that I originally built the spice rack to have three shelves so the following picture only shows enough wood for three shelves. However, the steps I tell you to do are to make a 4 shelf spice rack. Ha! I hope that isn’t confusing! Has anyone else ever built something then added to it? I can’t be the only one, right?
From the pallet wood cut:
We are now going to start building the spice rack and we are going to build it bottom to top. To start out, take one of the 19 inch by 3 1/2 inch pieces (shelf bottom) and place it between the two 26 inch long by 3 1/2 wide side pieces. Nail it into place.
Next you are going to take one of the 20 inch by 3 1/2 inch pieces and nail it on top of the two side pieces and the bottom piece that you attached in the previous step. This will become the back of the the bottom shelf.
Now flip the spice rack over and attach the 20 inch by 2 inch (shelf front) piece. Make sure to take the time to line everything up as much as you can. Pallet wood is imperfect and often times warped. This may make it slightly difficult to make sure everything is exact, but that’s okay! We are going for a weathered look not a perfected look.
Now you will need to determine how far you want to distance your shelves. The space between my bottom shelf and the second one is 11 inches to allow for my bigger spice containers. Nail another 19 inch by 3 1/2 inch (shelf bottom) piece into place wherever you would like to place your second shelf.
Add the 20 inch by 3 1/2 inch (shelf back) piece and then the 20 inch by 2 inch front piece to complete the second shelf. The next two shelves are spaced the same and are the exact same to build. Now you will measure up 5 1/2 inches and place your next 19 inch by 3 1/2 inch (shelf bottom) piece.
Continue adding fronts and backs until you have four shelves…or make three shelves and then realize you need four like me, ha!
That is it for the building part! Easy, right? Now its time to paint or stain the spice rack however you’d like. I used left over stain from my DIY Window Flower Boxes (you can visit that post for details) because I’m all about saving money and using what I have. In fact, I had all the supplies on hand for this project so it was “free” to me! Even if you have to buy a pallet and stain you could still easily make this project for around $10.
Once the stain is dry, its time to go hang your spice rack. In order to hang mine on the back of my pantry door, we used four large screws and drilled directly into the door. If you are hanging the spice rack onto a wall I would suggest using sheet rock mollies to help hold the weight of the rack and make sure that it doesn’t tear out of the wall.
Go clean out your spice cupboard and put them in that new spice rack! Enjoy the fact that you are creating more space in your kitchen…I know I did!
-Sara
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Dressing up your kitchen to be uniquely ‘you’ is simple with a few DIY projects! Here are a few more tutorials perfect for your kitchen:
How to Build SIMPLE FLOATING SHELVES (…for any room in the house!)
DIY Octagon Dining Room Table…with a farmhouse base!
Home Improvement: Adding Column Supports to Counter Overhang (PLUS finished kitchen photos!)