So happy to finally show you what we have been busy working on! These benches and table are a fun blend of rustic wood, fresh colors, simple clean lines, and a touch of industrial gabion. They are made from reclaimed pallet wood, a metal storage shelving unit that’s no longer needed, and a material that’s locally abundant – beach pebbles. ( Updated April 2, 2017 )
Green design gives us the opportunity to be extra creative. When materials or objects have served their original purpose, and are put in the category of “waste” (what an absurd concept anyway!), we give them new life by uncover their potential and beauty, and celebrate them in new ways.
(Update: Now the furniture is part of this: We turned a rental patio into a tropical pallet outdoor room! ) 
If you are wondering what’s ‘gabion’, here’s a good definition from wikipedia : “A gabion is a cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building, and military applications.”
Tools and materials:
- Pallets, and tools to dissemble pallets. Our favorite method is with this tool – a Duckbill Deck Wrecker we got on Amazon. This tool lifts those boards easily, and you can take out the nails with a hammer.
- wood glue and clamps
- Kreg Jig K4 Pocket Hole System and screws. The Kreg jig is super useful and easy to use for creating very strong joints.
- Circular saw or jig saw. We also made a cross-cut jig, see Step 3. (If you have a table saw, great!)
- Sanding pad or power sander
- acrylic paint or other type of water proof paint
- Tung oil and citrus solvent finish, furniture wax – recipe to follow
Here’s a detailed post I just wrote- All About Pallets! It covers lots of FAQ on finding, selecting and working with pallets. For a simpler starter project, check out the pallet crate tutorial .
When designing these pieces, there are 2 main limitations to consider:
The beauty as well as the challenge of pallet wood lies in it’s variations. They are quite different from finished wood sold in hardware stores. Although most boards on pallets are either 3.5″ or 5.5″ wide, the thickness can vary from 0.5″ to 0.8″.
The other limitation is tools. I am spoiled in my woodworking class with amazing shop tools. But I want to make these with very simple tools that most people with limited space can have. These diagrams show the basic structures and assembly of the benches and table. There are certainly other ways to build these and feel free to adjust them according to the wood sizes you have.
The hollow post that the table fit into will be secured inside the gabion. Because the gabion cage in this case is 15″x15″x15″, the post needs to be a size that fits inside and still leave room for the pebbles / rocks, which are not just decorative, but more importantly – they contribute to a strong base.
As you can see we need a lot of pieces of the same length. Even though pallet wood is quite irregular, we still want the cuts to be as clean and square as possible. This jig worked great.
This jig is made for our Makita circular saw, and cuts pieces under 1.5″ thick. It very simple to make, but there are lot of considerations from blade cutting depth, to clearances on several parts of the saw when it slide along the guide.
We used 1/4″ and 1/2″ plywood, and finished wood 1Xs to make the jig, after cutting the pieces using a straight edge guide which came with the circular saw, we glued the pieces together.
Please refer to the diagram here (right click and save if you want to print it out) which explains the design considerations for a jig that will work for your saw.
For the bench and table top, select board of the same thickness. The sides can have more variations.
After all the pieces are cut and sanded, we painted the frames of the benches a lemon yellow to echo the gabion cage / metal shelving unit. Next, drill pocket holes in the pieces the needs them, such as the bracing pieces under the table top and the bench top, and the frame around the table top.
To make the benches, the easier way would be to build the frame first with pocket hole screws, then glue or nail the side and top boards. But I somehow chose to do it the reversed order, only to learn a better way later!
To make the tabletop, arrange the measured and cut boards in a way that accentuate the varaitions of the pallet wood, attache back brace pieces with glue or nails, then attach the frame all around the 4 sides with pocket hole screws.
The base of the table slides into a hollow post stabilized by the metal cages filled with rock / pebbles. When making the base and the post, the most important thing to remember is that they should be the same height, and fit snugly. The dimensions shown in the diagram is adjustable depending on the size of your metal cage and the size of wood you are using. We made them with vertical boards joined together by horizontal braces, and pocket hole screws at right angles. There are about 2″ to 3″ of spacing all the way around between the cage and post for the pebbles. And that took 50lbs of pebbles to fill!
The finishing oil recipe we used here is from realmilkpaint.com, a 50% tung oil + 50% citrus solvent, to help the oil seep into the wood better. Now they offer this already mixed.
After applying a coat of this finish and let it cure for a day, repeat this process 2 more times. In my woodworking class we used a ‘slurry method’ where we sand with 220 -400 grit sand paper and create a oil-fine saw dust slurry mixture, which fill in the pores of the wood and create a marble like finish after doing it daily for 7 days.
We did not do it here, not that we are lazy ( well, hmm), but because we kept a lot of the surface character of the pallet wood. So we just wiped on the finish with a rag. Woohoo no long hours of sanding!
After the oil cures for a week, we applied a finishing wax mentioned also in the pallet wood crates project – apply a generous amount onto the wood surface, and enjoy the delicious honey smell on your furniture!
To assemble the table, collect some pebbles or rocks from your mountains and rivers nearby. We used beach pebbles, which make us think of the ocean.
Center the hollow post inside the metal wire cage, fill pebbles all around the post to the top. Slide the table base inside the post. The pebbles heavy weight hold the post and table in place, and create a strong and sturdy base.
Now we can sit in the garden and enjoy a nice book outdoors accompanied by bird songs!
And the pallet crates and image transfer tutorial mentioned earlier is here-
Have a super fun July 4th! See you soon!
Sharing at beyond the picket fence | remodelaholic | funky junk interiors | miss mustard seed
Would look great on our patio! Beautiful!
let’s make a set! xo
I LOVE your Renter’s Tropical Remodel…….The only thing that you didn’t mention how to make was that cubboard looking item……Do you have the directions for that??? Would love to be able to make that too !!!!! Can you add the directions for that on your website ??? PLEASE !!!
THX……Cathy
hi cathy! i have been thinking about how to write that one, because the hinges were a bit tricky! check back towards the end of september, i have something similar & super gorgeous (built by a friend) that i am drawing plans for! =)
What a job!!! It looks great!!! And the yellow and pebbles work good together! Thanks for the tuto…i might copy you… Besos
thank you sofie and have fun! =)
GREAT tutorial! I didn’t know what a gabion table is, but I absolutely LOVE it! I’m loving the rocks – it’s such a cute set! Swoon!
so appreciate it dear kristi! =)
Great tutorial. Your seating and table came out really nice. Would love if you shared this on the Merry Monday Linky Party.
thank you erlene! i will stop by this evening! =)
beautiful, just beautiful….if i ever get a house….. 😀
thank you dear andrea! =)
Wow Ananda, these look incredible, you really are so talented, I absolutely love them!
oh emma you are so sweet! can not take all the credit : hubby did a lot of the hard work ! =)
Again I love your creativity, and how you come up with these great ideas. I also love your final picture–the setting is perfect–great job! Happy 4th of July.
thank you mary ann! i always feel ideas are the easy part, making them work isn’t always easy, but hubby helped a lot on that hehe! happy july 4th to you! =)
What a great idea!! I found you on facebook and I pinned and shared this on facebook. Great instructions for a great project
thank you and great to meet you helen! =)
With or without pallet wood these pieces would look great. Nice job and great design.
thank you so much kelley! =)
That is so creative! I’m so impressed!
thank you dear meredith!
Looks great! Love the pop of yellow…
thank you laurel for visiting !
Oh wow! I really love this!! love the pebbles and the yellow
thank you natasha for visiting! =)
I love these so much! How creative! You did a fantastic job!
thank you so much susan, so nice to see you here! =)
Those are awesome!! Love the pop of color and yellow just rocks. I need to show these to my husband so he can make them 🙂
thank you dear marni! so nice to have handy hubbies hehe =)
Fantastic! Where did you get/find the gabion? I’ve had such a hard time finding any that aren’t from specialty stores online and are crazy expensive.
thank you Melissa ! this was a hand me down, but someone tole me they saw similar ones at target or walmart. 🙂 I am also posting a little improvement – add more strength to the gaboon by tying some fishing line On the sides!
I love this and thanks for sharing the detailed steps to make it, too! I love the creativity in the table and bench – it is something unique and different compared to other pallet wood benches I have seen around – great work!
Great work ananda, I am trying to do almost the same thing. Will you please tell me from where you have collected the stones? Amazon? It’s kinda pricey for me. Is there any other place to get those?
hi morgan, i got them here on the beach for free 🙂 see if you can find local river rocks in nature, or call some landscape materials center near you 🙂
It looks fantastic and Great!! Ananda, you are creative like Steve jobs 🙂
can’t remotely compare to Steve, 🙂 you are very kind!
Wow! You are so talented! I’m really loving this as a fun summer project.