Pallet Signs

Originally as my husband and I were planning out the nursery for our upcoming baby we thought of doing a vinyl lettering saying on the wall. My husband and I live in an apartment and upon considering things more we wondered if vinyl was going to be the best option. Our walls are kind of a popcorn textured wall so we wondered it it would adhere to the wall in the first place. We also considered the fact that when we finally are able to purchase a home the vinyl lettering probably would not transfer easily to a new location and we would probably end up having to redo it completely.

My husband came up with the idea of doing a pallet sign instead of vinyl lettering directly on the wall. We decided this was the route we wanted to go. My Dad was able to pick up a LARGE free pallet for us through some of his connections and we got to work on disassembling the pallet. 

It was definitely a little tricky trying to take the boards apart without destroying them in the process. A trick that we found most helpful was placing a board or something else in between to hammer that instead of directly on the board to try and loosen the nails enough to pry out. 

Once we had the pallet disassembled we used a chop saw to cut the boards to the desired length and then used two smaller pieces of wood that would be used for the back to hold all the pieces together.

Not all the boards were perfect, some had pieces that had splintered off or had knots or holes but we actually liked that some of them weren't perfect because it gave it more unique character and had more of the distressed old wood look we were trying to achieve anyway.

We used a hand sander to sand down each board to the desired smoothness. We ended up making three pallet signs: two larger ones and one smaller. We gave my sister one of the larger ones and used the other two our own projects. On the larger pallet sign we left it a little more rough because we wanted it to have a more rustic look. The smaller one we sanded to be more smooth. After we were done sanding we drilled the two boards to the back to hold all the pieces together.

Once the pallet sign was assembled to our liking we were ready to distress the wood on the larger pallet sign. We used leftover gray paint and brown stain we had from other projects. I watered down gray paint a little and used a paint brush to lightly paint on the wood. Then we brushed over that with the stain to get down in the grooves and cracks of the wood. We used rags to wipe off the paint and stain and repeated this process until we achieved the desired look we wanted. 

After the sign was painted we used my sister's Cricket to print vinyl stencils as the template for our design. 

Then we used acrylic craft paint and craft sponges to paint on the stencil. Once the paint was dry we peeled the vinyl off to see the nearly finished product. 

The blue lettering we used on our first sign we harder to read in some light so we decided to trace the outside edge of the lettering in white to help it stand out more clearly. 

 The second pallet sign we used our extra gray paint except I didn't dilute it this time.

Again we used vinyl stenciling and acrylic craft paint for the lettering.

DIY - Refinished Dresser

My husband and I are expecting our 1st baby and we were lucky enough to inherit an old dresser from my husband's parents. They had this dresser sitting in their garage for 5+ years. We knew this dresser had potential for new life. 

Before we even knew the gender we picked out a turquoise color to refinish the dresser with. We knew it was a neutral color we could use for either gender so we went forward with our first attempt at refinishing a piece of furniture. 

My husband found a blog on Pinterest that had the color we were thinking so we based some of our refinishing project on how she refinished her dresser. The original inspiration can be found here.

We used the same color she used called Caribe by Behr. The major differences were that we didn't use the glaze to antique the dresser and we used a stain on the top to make it two toned.

We used a hand sander to get most of the existing varnish/stain off on the dresser. We didn't worry too much about getting all of it off on the sides, or drawers because we knew the paint would cover well enough that we didn't worry about getting it completely sanded down. 

However, the top of the dresser we did make sure we had it completely sanded down because we were using a stain for the top and we weren't sure it would cover as well. 

We used a paint and primer in one instead of priming first and then painting separately. We felt like it covered really well and we were really happy with it. We did two coats of paint and we were surprised what a small amount of paint we used. We bought a gallon of paint and we have a TON leftover. You DEFINITELY do not need a gallon. We had only used about an inch of that gallon.

The top we used a stain that had primer in it as well. We had never stained anything before so I don't know if that went exactly how we planned or how we were maybe supposed to do it but I do still like how it turned out. It just looks more like a painted brown top vs. a stained brown top. If I were to do it again I would probably research a little more on how to stain before I did it. I can't remember if we did two or three coats on the stain but I think we did too much. 

To finish everything off my husband sprayed polyurethane to of seal the dresser as a protective coating on the dresser as well.

We bought new hardware for it and we are so pleased with how it turned out.

Here are a few pictures to see the process.