Pallet Flooring: Detailed Guide & Ideas

Wood shipping pallets can even be used after their original uses. The wood pallets can be salvaged once they are discarded to make a beautiful looking floor made of these pieces of wood. Nowadays a lot of people are making pallet flooring in their houses instead of choosing marble flooring. There are a lot of factors behind people opting for pallet flooring ideas instead of marble flooring. The cost of creating a pallet floor is less compared to floors created with any other materials. Along with that the requirement of landfill waste will also get reduced. You need to put a little bit of effort along with time in order to create a pallet floor. But one thing is guaranteed that you will be satisfied with the result. In this article, we are going to discuss the process by which you can create a palette floor. Along with that several pallet flooring ideas will also be shared.

What is the Right Type of Palettes?

The first thing that you need to know is what kind of palette is required for flooring. Some pieces of wood get damaged to a great extent and can not be used further and in some cases, pallets possess wood boring insects that can prove to be health hazards. Pallets that contain bacteria like E.coli or fungus can not be used for flooring purposes.Another thing that you need while learning how to make a pallet floor is to look for is the number of nails present in the pieces of wood. So, you might be wondering what is the right type of wood pallets to choose to make floors in the house. The answer is that you should choose pallets that are stamped as ‘national pallets’ which means these palettes are manufactured and used in only one single country. Other than that palettes that consist of International standards for Phytosanitary Measures (IPPC) stamp can also be used because the stamps include a code which usually indicates letters such as DB that means debarked, HT which means heat-treated and other than that KD which stands for kiln-dried and finally MB which means methyl bromide treated.

Steps to Create Palette Flooring

There are several steps that you need to follow in order to create palette flooring.

• Search for the Material for Wooden Flooring

Depending on the floor space you need to choose the length of the planks. For an average sized room you will require a lot of planks. Businesses that receive a lot of packaged products every day can be an ideal source where you can start searching for wooden pallets. The businesses include departmental stores, furniture stores et cetera. You will also find good quality wood palettes in landfill sites. The easiest way to find wood pallets is to go to a hardware store. Here you will need to spend some extra money but you will save a lot of time.

• Form Flooring Planks from Wooden Pallets

After finding the right pallets the first thing that you need to do is clean them. While cleaning you need to look for things such as signs of damage or any kind of stains. Cleaning can be done by washing them with a hosepipe. Once you finish the cleaning process the next thing that you should do is dismantle them. Other than that any kind of discoloration indicates the presence of insects or health hazards. After all these you need to remove the nails from all those wooden planks. Use a nail puller to do the job. You can also use a crowbar to pull out the nails. After that, You need to smoothen both sides of the planks. Sanding the planks can be done with the help of an electric power sander. This will eventually make the planks smoother. This is necessary because using uneven planks will make the floor uneven. Thereafter, take two sawhorses and plant each pallet in between these sawhorses.  After doing all these, clean the planks. To rinse them, mix water with a very little amount of dish soap. With this mixture scrub both sides and rinse them with water. After rinsing them once, rinse them once again with a conglomeration of 1:3 mixture of bleach and water. At last dry the planks in the sunlight or you can also put them inside of your house to let the wooden planks dry.

• Installation of the Pallets

Choose the flooring design to install the pallets. The list of patterns include-

• Chevron
• Herringbone
• Double Herringbone
• Brick Bond
• Checkerboard
• Wood Strip
• Stack Bond
• Mosaic
• Versailles
• Chantilly
• Basket Weave
• Double Basket Weave

You can also create your own pattern. There are a variety of shades to choose from. So proper planning is required to make sure where you want to put the planks. If you don’t do that you will end up getting it all wrong due to the coloration of the planks. Clean up your old flooring before installing the wooden planks to create a palette flooring. Remove any kind of debris and ensure that the surface is leveled properly. Mark the floor joists by using a stud finder. Then lay the wooden planks perpendicularly to the floor joists. Therefore you need to plant the nails using a hammer to secure the joints. This will increase the hold. After laying the planks down, clean all of them with mineral spirits to make them ready for staining. Staining them will offer you a more protective finish.

Final Words

Choose any one of the pallet flooring ideas as all of them will look equally good and will increase the aesthetic pleasure of your house. You will get a rustic look after finishing the staining process. You can use any kind of commercial flooring material. This type of flooring will make the floor of your house more durable. Hope this article has proven to be useful and you can create a wooden pallet floor in your house on your own. So go for wooden flooring as it looks great with almost every color scheme that you will choose to paint the rooms of your house.