DIY Pallet Mug Holder and Coffee Bar

When we were in the process of buying our new house, the process ended up being a long one due needing to sell our current house before knowing our budget for the new one  and difficult sellers of our current house.  That meant we basically had to move twice, once to put all our stuff in storage and then moving everything out of storage to the new house. In that interim we stayed at my parents which you can imagine only made it feel longer!

Those months of living out of boxes gave me lots of time to get creative and prepare things for the new house. I’ve always wanted to have a coffee bar, somewhere cute to have all your morning caffeine fixes out of the way of the kitchen counter. In our last house the set up didn’t provide a good spot to have one, and the kitchen had so much counter space it wasn’t necessarily needed. I still always wished I had one because I think they’re so cute.

The fist time we went to look at our current house, the area next to the kitchen was meant to be a breakfast nook. I don’t feel the breakfast nook is needed because the dining room table is right on the opposite side of the kitchen. Why do I need two tables that close together? My first thought was “that’s where the coffee bar can go!” I don’t have a good “before” picture of the space, because there was no listing for the house, it was a by owner sale, so it didn’t have standard listing pictures. That also meant the sellers were the ones who showed us the house and I didn’t want to be awkward and take pictures in front of them.  I did sneak a few pictures when I went for the inspection (is that weird?), it’s dark and hard to see but that corner the arrow is pointing too is where my vision started!

Step 1 was to find the perfect piece of furniture for the actual bar. I came across this kitchen cart while scrolling on Facebook one day. It was at a furniture warehouse that buys furniture at auctions and resells the pieces. I texted a picture of it to my Mom for a second opinion and then headed out to pick up my new piece. It was in good shape, just needed a slight make over into a better color and new stain on the top.

I sanded the top and stained it in my favorite color, minwax special walnut. I did about 3 coats because I wanted it to be a rich dark brown. I sealed it the top with satin poly and that really brought out the grain in the wood. I love the look of stained wood.

I didn’t want to sand the entire bottom since there were lots of nooks in it, so I decided to use chalk paint. I used it once before and the great thing about it is that you don’t have to sand or do any prep to the area for the paint to stick. You do have to seal it with a special wax after the paint dries, but I think that was easier then trying to sand the entire thing. The color I used on the bottom was graphite, I chose it because I had the paint left over from a previous project. It’s a pretty grey that goes well with our house that’s mostly done in neutral grays.

Once I moved the coffee bar inside it was time to decide how to decorate around it. I put most of the mugs inside the cart, but I wanted to be able to display some of the mugs. I had a few options in mind for the space above the coffee cart. I could do open shelving, but I wanted something different and then when searching pinterest I saw so many different pallet transformed into coffee cup holders. I loved them and decided it would be perfect.

The first step was needing to find a pallet that I didn’t have to pay for. Hey, I like to do things on a budget around here. I got lucky a week or so later, my neighbor was throwing out a bunch of pallets. I had my husband run over and drag them back to our house. I only needed one but my Mom had some plans for the rest. I picked the best one

I started by measuring and cutting it down to size with a hand saw. Next I sanded it down on the front to smooth it out and get rid of some of the dirt and black spots it had acquired while sitting out by the curb.

Even after cutting it down it was still quite heavy. I was worried about how I would hang it on the wall, and also about how much it would stick out from the wall. My preference would be for it to be as flat against the wall as possible.

Best solution was to take the back half off of the pallet to get rid of some of the weight, and make it sit flat on the wall. That sounds like an easy task to pull a few nails out and separate the back half. It’s 100 % not easy, it was actually the hardest step of this process.  The nails were embedded so far down into the wood that it’s not easy pulling them out while trying not to leave a huge hole if the front of the pallet. The holes aren’t a big deal if you are planning to paint the pallet, you could just use wood filler first. I wanted to leave it unfinished for a rustic look so I was trying to be careful with the nail removal.

Tip: To help remove embedded nails, get a tool called a “Claw Bar” It helps to get down under the nail and lift it up so that you can actually use a hammer to pop it out. It was a life saver for this step!

Once we got all the extra wood off the back of the pallet the rest of the project was smooth sailing. I used my Cricut (a must have for any DIYer) to make a stencil to paint “Coffee” on the top of the pallet. I didn’t have any contact paper to use for the stencil, so I improvised and used card stock for the stencil and then sprayed it with adhesive to make it stick so it didn’t shift while spray painting.

Next was to add hooks to hold the coffee mugs. I measured out equal distance for 3 rows of 3. It was probably the longest process of the whole creation pre-drilling and then screwing in two screws per hook.

My next step isn’t necessary, but the screws that came with the hooks were much longer than the depth of the wood. I didn’t like having them stick out the back side, to fix this I cut them down with a hack saw. Since the palled will be hanging on the wall no one would know that they were sticking out but it just seems like a safety hazard having all those sharp points sticking through. It’s totally up to you.

To hang your pallet make sure you use anchors and screws, because it’s still going to be pretty heavy. You want to make sure it’s secure so you don’t come home and find that it’s fallen down and all your cute mugs broken. I was having a house warming party that night and wanted to display it for our guests, but didn’t have the right hardware to hang it so I set it on the top of the bar to show off my hard work for the night.

I’m glad I did that because that’s when I figured out that I had done two things wrong! It was too tall and I didn’t like the way it looked with just 3 hooks per a row. There was so much extra room on the sides it looked awkward. So before I hung it permanently I cut off the bottom board and adjusted the hooks to have 4 in a row. I had 12 hooks since they came in packages of 6, so I might as well use them all.

I went to Home Depot and got the hardware to attach to the back of the pallet and the brackets and screws to hang it on the wall. Those anchors that twist into the drywall are my favorite for hanging heavier items. They are much more secure than normal anchors. I also ordered some cute containers to hold our coffee, tea, and sugar. That clear Tupperware one just wasn’t cute! I ordered these, 3-Piece Brushed Stainless Steel Nested Cans from Amazon. They’re air tight and look much better.

My final product ended up looking just like I envisioned it! It’s cute, functional and adds some extra storage, which is always a plus! I love that it keeps the coffee maker from taking up an entire section of kitchen counter!

This was my first adventure in re-purposing a pallet. I had plans for things before but just never had the time or desire to take them on. I think this one came out great and now I’m thinking what else I could make!

Have you made anything by transforming pallets? Let me know and if you’ve written about it leave a link so I can check it out!

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