I like to give pallet wood another life. I've done a lot of small projects with pallet wood : clocks, lamps, candleholders, coat hanger, etc. But I've still had a lot of these pallet blocks and no idea what to do with them.

So here's one of my first project with pallet blocks.

NB : As you will see, English is not my native language, so there's will be some misspelled words and some grammatical mistakes.

Supplies

Paints :

Step 1: First Sanding

I do a quick sanding with heavy grain (60-80) to be able to see all the small flaws that I will have to handle or not. I see a lot of nail holes, I could keep them, but I decide to get rid of them as the base will be paint anyway.

Step 2: Get Rid of the Holes

I use dowels with a small amount of glue to fill the holes. So I create 8 mm holes (size of the dowels), put some glue and let dry a bit.

It's still not good enough for me, there are still small gaps around the filled holes. So I put some glue and use sanding dust to fill the rest. And sand again, this time with 80, then 100, then 120, … until it was soft enough. Better.

Step 3: Paint the Blocks

I've painted a first coat in black. Let it dry. Then a second coat in a random color. I've made many styles to compare the result. I even just burn one of them.

To have a cool effect of distressed wood, I've sanded each of them with a grain 120.

Well, that's the order I have done things. Next time, I will probably do the necessary holes before (the wire and the socket).

Step 4: Do the Holes and Vanish

I use a 38 mm drill bit to do the holes. I clamp the block, but see what happened. So, I've decided to screw a plank under the block and then fix it with the clamps. The 38 mm hole size is 35 mm deep, which is enough for the socket to correctly fit in with a part of the wire.

The second hole, is the one that allow the wire to go from the socket out of the lamp. I didn't measure anything for that, just a guess. The first time I used a 6 mm drill bit, which was not enough for the wire I wanted to use, so pay attention to that point. But 8 mm was ok.

I vanish a first coat, then sand with small grain (320-400), and put another coat. Some of them had a 3rd coat because the result was not good enough for me.

Step 5: Put the Wire and the Socket

Pass the wire through the hole. Do not forget to pass the bottom part of the socket first!

Connect the wires to the socket (side doesn't matter).

Choose where to put the switch and cut the cable. Connect the switch. The only thing to pay attention to here is to respect the color and side. If you put the blue wire on the left on one side, you have to put it on the left on the second side.

Then connect the power plug. Side doesn't matter here.