How to make a potting bench out of pallet wood
A friend of mine lusted after a potting bench made from old pallet wood, and it just so happens that I’d just picked up a fresh load of single use pallets from my local tile superstore. Luckily (and unusually) this time it included some 2.4m long ones, perfect for the long back legs of a potting bench.
Here’s how I made it…
Most of the joints were assembled with outdoor wood glue and nails from an air nailer. On the more structural joints I used outdoor wood screws in 3mm pilot holes.
Instead of buying in square section timber, I made up ‘L’ shaped legs from pallet wood. Measure the width of the board you have, minus the thickness. Divide this in half and that’s the width of cut on the saw. Glue and pin/screw the narrower piece to one side of the wider piece to give you equal width ‘L’ shaped legs. Make two 140 cm long and two 85 cm long.
Use the front legs to mark off the height on the rear legs. Glue and screw a 45cm long cross-piece to the top of the front legs and up to your mark on the rear legs. Ensure the cross-piece is square with both legs (legs will be parallel). Repeat for the other side.
Make another cross-piece around 75mm up from the bottom. This one can be made from a narrower piece, around 40mm or so. This supports the lower shelf slats. Glue/ screw this in place.
And another cross-piece for the upper shelf, exactly the same as the lower one, around 3/4 of the way up or to suit your specific shelf spacing requirements. Glue and screw these in place.
Cut two pieces of plank to around 80cm long and glue and screw them in place next to the top side cross pieces to form the bench supports.
Cut 6 shelf planks (or 8 depending on your plank width) and glue and screw/pin in place onto the cross pieces. It looks nice to just lightly run a hand plane over the top corners…
Run extra planks around the top of the bench but make them stick up the thickness of your bench top planks (see next pic).
Cut your bench planks to sit inside the bench edges. Add little side fences if you wish, which are handy to stop stuff rolling off the bench or to contain potting up soil. Sand the top like hell!
Jump up to the very top now and make a shelf. I made an ‘L’ shaped piece out of two planks and screwed it on top of the rear uprights. Copy the style of the bench fences up here too.
Find your most interesting planks for the rear slats, as this is the most visible part of the potting bench! I glued and screwed these on with gold screws for the best look.
And that just leaves the most important bit, the wine glass holder! Drill a 40mm hole into the end of a plank and saw a 15mm or so slot through to it. Chamfer off the front and sand it all up. Glue and screw in place securely, you don’t want to spill any!
Well, that’s about it. I hope this helps you with your own pallet wood potting bench and if you want it to last a little while, give it a couple of coats of wood preservative. I used decking oil on this one, so we will see how it copes with the weather in Sweden (I made this one for a friend, *Hi Annika!*).
p.s. Here’s another shot of the bench in use…
Beautifully practical too…
Stay well
Ian
