Welcome to Life Outside The Shop’s first DIY video teaching you the best way to break down a pallet!

I wish I could say that we get up to a lot of DIY stuff over here but that would definitely be a lie. You know that saying, “the shoemaker’s kid has no shoes”? Well, the woodworker’s (almost) wife would have no projects if she didn’t beg for them… and volunteer to help!

Real talk though, Sam is great about entertaining my Pinterest-found ideas and I’m about to put him to work getting a few signs made for our upcoming wedding. But he is usually pretty busy building Shadow Boxes and other commissioned projects for us to have leftover time to dedicate to our home.

What WAS finally worth some time was finishing up the hall in our entryway (two years after finishing up other house renovations… we all have those projects, right?) and we needed something to put on the wall to make it feel like home.

Since we’re getting more and more excited to bring a GSP puppy into our home in a few months, I found just the thing online and we decided to do a little DIY and build it together.

We carved out some time so he could teach me the best way to break down a pallet for my puppy pallet projet.

How to Break Down a Pallet

You can follow along with the video below for step-by-step tips and instructions but here is a quick little breakdown:

1. Remove the slat boards from the pallet frame using a reciprocating saw with a fine-tooth metal cutting blade.
2. Remove the remaining pieces of the nails using a 3/32″ punch and hammer.
3. REPEAT! Keep doing this until you have enough boards to carry out your vision.

We hope you had a great weekend! Keep us in the loop with your projects by tagging @sammacydesigns on the gram so we can follow along!