My husband and I bought our first home about 2 years ago. It is the perfect size for our family right now. It has some really cool features but one thing that we both loved about it was an awesome sun room off the garage. 

While we loved this sun room when we were looking to buy the house, we realized there were a few downsides to it after we bought the house and moved in. 

#1 It was unfinished. 

#2 You can only get to the sun room by walking through the garage or from outside. There is no doorway going from directly inside the house to the sun room. I believe this is because the previous owners turned a back patio into the current sun room and it was just easier/cheaper to leave the access going through the garage.

Well, there was/is no way to fix problem #2 without spending thousands of dollars and completely remodeling our kitchen and extending the sun room out much farther. And that is just not going to happen!

However, finishing the inside of it is another story.

We talked for two years about how to be creative with that space and how to finish it inexpensively.

I honestly never believed we would get it finished. We have a lot of other house projects and the sun room wasn’t really apart of the house. It was more like extra storage or a shed that was attached. I also wasn’t willing to spend the money on it to have someone come hang drywall and put in a ceiling. 

Well one day Seth got this crazy idea (more like he saw a Pinterest picture) that we finish our sun room with pallets! 

He started showing me pictures of rooms with pallets on the walls and I liked the idea too. 

If you know my husband, you know he is not one to just sit around and talk. Once he gets an idea he goes out and does it immediately. He’s also not very patient. 

As soon as I said “Yes I like this idea, lets do it.” He was out the door looking for pallets. 

We got all of the pallets for this project for free! 

Seth went to our local industrial park. Every single business had piles and piles of pallets just laying next to their parking lot. Some were in nice, neat stacks; others were in smashed, half-hazard piles. 

He went from business to business and asked them what they did with their pallets–fully expecting to have to pay for them. Each business told him he could take as many as he wanted. One man actually encouraged him to take every single pallet off his lot–all for free! Now that I have this information and close source for pallets, I’m searching Pinterest for more pallet projects! 

So far this project is off to great start! 

Next we painted the whole sun room a dark brown. This was because we knew there would be gaps between the boards and we didn’t want any of the white paint or light colored plywood to show through. The brown paint hides the gaps. 

We bought the cheapest paint Walmart had. I think it cost about $11 for a gallon. 

We only used half a gallon and we only gave it a single coat. 

The paint job didn’t have to be perfect since we were covering it up. 

Next came the tedious ..er.. fun part! 

Seth broke down a whole bunch of pallets using a reciprocating saw, and safety glasses, ear protection, and gloves!!  

Then we used an air compressor and nail gun to attach the boards to the wall. We started at the bottom, working left to right, then right to left–to give the boards a staggered look. 

Thankfully, there were a lot of studs (besides Seth obviously) so even the shorter boards were no problem. 

The time consuming part wasn’t attaching the boards to the wall, it was breaking down the pallets, and cutting them to fit into the corners and between the windows. 

I was a little concerned on how we would frame the windows but we were able to use pallet wood even for them and they turned out great! 

It took Seth two entire days with sporadic help from me (for some reason our children still demanded 3 meals–don’t they know there is a sun room to finish?!)

And here’s another before picture:

And after picture of the same corner (but slightly different angle): 

We have also finished the ceiling–check it out! 

Anna