Turn Old Wood Pallets Into A Budget-Friendly Pergola With Plenty Of Rustic Charm

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Old wood pallets are a DIYer's Swiss Army Knife. There's almost nothing you can't slap together with a pile of slats from some used pallets and a little elbow grease, from charming backyard privacy screens to clever outdoor storage systems. And thanks to YouTuber Vegging Out, we can add pergolas to the list of very doable outdoor projects that old wood pallets can handle.

Starting with a pile of donated, extra-long wood pallets, Vegging Out starts by first disassembling them– careful with the nails! The long planks become the crossbeams connected to the thicker posts. The next step is to plane and cut grooves into the shorter posts to make the rafters. Then, the YouTuber plugs in the rafters, and voila! After some painting, we see a picture-perfect yet rustic garden pergola.

Vegging Out created an amazing pergola, but if you want an even more rustic, distressed look, you could skip planing the wood and go for a rough sanding instead. The DIYer also uses a wood router to create elegant edge profiles on the posts and rafters, but that's just for aesthetics and not strictly required. For this project, at minimum, you'll need a handsaw or a circular saw like the Ryobi ONE+ 18V Brushless Cordless (available at Home Depot for around $160) to cut the ends off the posts, a hammer and chisel to carve out the notches for the crossbeams and rafters, and a drill and some wood screws to piece it all together.

While Vegging Out clearly has some handy carpentry skills, the crafter also got lucky being gifted extra-long pallets, which happened to be stringer style, not block. Stringer pallets have long, parallel boards running the length of the pallet to hold it together, perfect for making posts and crossbeams. Block pallets, on the other hand, are held together by small blocks, which you can carve out to make planters and stands for your garden, but won't be very much help putting up a pergola.

Even more importantly, Vegging Out also hit the jackpot by getting pallets with long and thick beams that were just right for his pergola's posts. For stability, you definitely need thick posts, at least 4 by 4 inches, to set into the ground firmly so your pergola doesn't wobble. And, unfortunately, thick, equilateral pieces are not nearly as common as thinner, flatter ones.

While there's a million and one exciting wood pallet projects you can DIY at home with the standard square pallets you find in warehouses and the backs of big box stores, the extra-long ones used by Vegging Out are a little more specialized and not nearly as common. However, a quick search on sites like Facebook Marketplace might turn up some extra-long stringer pallets near you. You never know! As long as you can scrounge up some thick, equilateral beams to make the posts, some longer, thinner boards for the crossbeams, and something for the rafters, you should be able to manage. Just keep collecting scrap lumber from old wood pallets and demo sites and you'll soon have enough pieces of the right sizes and lengths to copy Vegging Out without breaking the bank.

Once you've finished raising your very own rustic, handmade pergola, Vegging Out suggests treating it as a trellis and planting pumpkins near the posts to climb up the rafters. You can also try tomatoes and cucumbers, or purely ornamental plants like bougainvillea and climbing roses. Finally, string some outdoor lights along the rafters to complete your rustic yet charming garden walkway.