Do you remember when I first mentioned that me & Justin made our own sofa? It was probably in this post about my blogging spot – so well, yeah. We made it! And today I will show you how to make your own DIY wooden pallet sofa for about £20 or even less!
First of all, what do you need?
➝ a cat (priceless): or any other pet, even a stuffed toy if you haven’t got a real pet around – helps you relax when you break down because you painted your carpet/scraped your wall or cut before you measured
➝ wooden pallets (free or £5 each): depending on the size of your to-be sofa (we had 2 at first – on the top of each other) and then eventually added 2 more to create a corner sofa). You can get these from your local wooden pallet manufacturer either for free or for something silly like a fiver. They usually have a few odd ones lying around and will be happy you take them away! They don’t need to be any particular size – it really depends on what you’re looking for, however we figured out that the ones that are ‘fuller’ on the top are much more comfortable to sit on – doh!
➝ sandpaper (£1-2 for pack): to sand down the rough surface – it’s obviously not necessary but some of the pallets can be rather rough and you don’t want your carpet/wooden floor to be all ripped/scratched!
➝ paint & brush (£5-10 & 99p): choose colour & paint (just make sure your paint is good for wooden surfaces, otherwise it could stain your carpet once dry), also advisable is to cover your carpet (carefully!) with newspapers or plastic bags. Depending on the state of the pallet you might need one or two coats – and trust me, a sample pot won’t be enough. Get at least the regular sized one – that should be enough for 2-3 average sized pallets.
➝ duvet (£4-7 depending on thickness): to create cushions for your sofa you can either have a piece of foam mattress cut off, or – like us cheapskates – just buy a duvet (or a few, depending on how soft you want your sofa to be) and fold them into the size of your sofa.
➝ textile (around £5, again – depending on the size of your sofa/cushions): to keep your duvets in place, take a piece of textile, cut it into the right size and sew it into a ‘sack’ for your duvets. You can either sew them together permanently or like us you can add a few buttons on one side to be able to wash them once in a while!
You can play around with a number of factors such as the size – you can have a few more pallets on the top of each other to have your sofa higher, you can also make a back for your sofa with another pallet, paint a pattern on the wood – whatever you can think of and whatever fits into your living room! We have added a string of fairy lights to the bottom of our sofa, which makes our living room super cosy *mmm*! And above the sofa we have our string with photos – you can see the whole DIY here.