The Wood Pallet Project You'll Love If You're Low On Cabinet Storage Space

Finding a pre-made cabinet to meet your storage needs can be tricky for odd spaces, leaving you with one option to get the perfect fit: DIYing it. Still, while building your own storage cabinet will often be cheaper than buying one, it also requires more of your time and a financial investment. Some costs are unavoidable, but if you know where to look, the wood doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. Even as lumber prices stabilize, you stand to significantly save on materials by going the ever-reliable route of repurposing wood pallets.

Measure your space, and lay out the dimensions for your custom cabinet. The design can go in several directions, but TikTok channel @build.m supplies one of the most attractive schemes for a spacious and fully enclosed construction. But making this freestanding wood pallet cabinet demands a lot of pieces for the panels. You will likely need several pallets with matching deck board and stringer sizes. And since you'll be sanding and cutting the boards, sourcing safe pallets by checking the IPPC label is crucial. Aside from your pallets, this build will also require wood for your trim, a miter or table saw, a palm sander, and glue and fasteners to assemble the cabinet. For the spanners dividing the panels, you can use fresh lumber from Home Depot or Lowe's, or repurpose the pallet stretchers by ripping them to the desired width.

Start your cabinet project by cutting and sanding your wood pallet sections and the framing lumber. In @build.m's video, the builder creates a rectangular frame for the panels with an inside routed edge to slot the pallet boards in place one at a time. The back of the cabinet features spanners forming a cross, creating four panels. The sides only have a center spanner separating the top and bottom halves. You can also sandwich the pallet pieces between wood moulding if you don't have a router. This will make the sides a bit thicker. The outside edges of each side will also expose the pallet ends, so you'll need to fill the panel edges with a wood strip to clean up the look.

With the back and sides built and assembled, you can add the top and bottom sections and a center shelf joined to the spanners. The construction ends with four doors (two on top and two on the bottom) attaching to the front via hinges. Add handles and door catches, and your build is complete! For the catches, you can follow the tutorial and use magnetic products like these Onarway units. Friction fit and surface-mounted options are also easy to install. Apply paint if desired, or leave the cabinet natural to match the rest of your wood pallet storage projects. All that's left is to figure out how you'll arrange the space, adding shelves and hanging hooks to organize your items.