We have a great back deck at Star Hill, our near the lake house. It is a great place to have friends over and is our main hang out area in the spring.
In order to serve food on the back deck we have used card tables, folding tables, and even tv trays. We are getting ready to paint the deck with a wood restore product and got everything power washed. While waiting for the deck to dry out and the temperature to rise enough that we can apply the paint we built a buffet for serving food and drinks. We also have this ugly pipe that bugs me. The buffet is going to mask the ugliness.
My friend Mary, from SJ Ranch offered me some pallets last week. These pallets are what the cattle feed comes on and they were stacked in the barn. I love being given materials to use. I honestly did not expect to get pallets out in the country.
Full disclosure here. I did not think this up, the idea came from this site:
Why yes, I did notice it was mostly not in English and yes I noticed that there were no instructions. That is what I have Mr. Math for. He is the best at figuring out what I want when I can’t explain it very well. We did have the picture to look at:
We studied the photo then… as usual, we modified it to make it work for us. I love the look, the durability and the functionality for a back deck that is exposed to the elements.
We laid out the pavers then started figuring out the dimensions.
The three pallets we got were not uniform in size. We found two that were less than an inch apart in height and about an inch different in width. Mr. Math cut the larger down to the size of the smaller one. ( Honestly I think I would have just made them work together but it would have driven him crazy.) Once we looked at the pallets, we decided that the best way to place them for our deck was with the slats going vertically instead of horizontally like in the picture above. The buffet is 40 inches tall and 47 inches wide. We used deck boards that were too rough to keep on the deck to wrap around the top and bottom of the pallets.
The deck boards added some stability to the structure and gave it additional weight. Once the deck is painted, we will be putting a few screws through the bottom into the deck just to make sure that it never falls over on anyone. There may have been some rough housing from time to time at our house If I were going to be putting the buffet on the ground I would put some sort of stake into the ground just to make sure it stays upright.
I plan on staining the narrow boards and painting the deck boards once we get the deck finished. A good coat of marine varnish will help it to last.
Here it is finished except the painting.
This is going to be a welcome addition to our deck.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. If you are new to my blog, welcome. If you are an old friend, thank you for hanging in there with me.
Blessings,
Karen