When will this pallet furniture trend end?

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Anyone watch Money For Nothing on BBC1? It's quite amazing, the money people charge her for "renovating" stuff and the total garbage that people buy - especially considering that a lot of it is sold to an on line retailer who's probably doubling the price. It's so bad it's almost addictive. :lol:
 
You do realise there's a lot more time and work involved in making something from pallets than there is from buying 'perfect timber' that needs little or no preparation. :-D
 
NazNomad":5e87melj said:
You do realise there's a lot more time and work involved in making something from pallets than there is from buying 'perfect timber' that needs little or no preparation. :-D

Thats kinda the point though - people aren't doing the cleanup work, and in most cases it looks like utter rubbish, but apparently it's "Rustic", so it's all good. :roll:

oh and I quite like rustic furniture.
 
except that a hobbyists (which is most likely the person using pallets) time is cheap, materials aren't.

it will never stop. not until they use plastic pallets. why should it, just because it isn't your taste doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

this popped up in my youtube feed this morning. I appreciate his workshop skills are a bit dubious at times and he has a really passion for power tools, but I think the finished product is pretty good looking even if it's not for everybody. (it could have been amazing with a decent carver doing the lettering)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zCp10N4u6o
 
I do think it has had its five seconds of real fame, but we're in the settled-in phase now after that and it'll probably quietly burble along as part of woodworking for the foreseeable future. I suspect it'll only die back to 'background noise' levels after a few more decades.

So best try to learn to ignore it transatlantic or you'll be asleep in your cave for too long otherwise :-D Either that or hunt out the best of the stuff, where you have to be told it was made from pallet wood. There is work of this calibre out there, obviously a small minority of the total but then it's not every pallet that's made from purpleheart or padauk to begin with!
 
ED65":2p8v8kt7 said:
I do think it has had its five seconds of real fame, but we're in the settled-in phase now after that and it'll probably quietly burble along as part of woodworking for the foreseeable future. I suspect it'll only die back to 'background noise' levels after a few more decades.

So best try to learn to ignore it transatlantic or you'll be asleep in your cave for too long otherwise :-D Either that or hunt out the best of the stuff, where you have to be told it was made from pallet wood. There is work of this calibre out there, obviously a small minority of the total but then it's not every pallet that's made from purpleheart or padauk to begin with!

haha! :D :D :D
 
I think it'll end when they stop making pallets out of wood.

I don't see a problem with it...buying quality wood from a timber merchant can be prohibitively expensive and recycling wood isn't a bad thing.

Pallet wood is usually cheap and fast grown...making it look anything other than rustic is sometimes impossible.

I do have a few pallets I rescued from a skip which I intend to do something with, but the wood from the first pallet was rubbish so it ended up in the stove.
 
I make lots of things from the big 2x1 pallets we get at work. Mainly fires. :lol:
 
I think the style is still on trend, its certainly popular in retail, such as fat face, trendy coffee shops, cafes bars etc.

Done well, a room furnished in such fashion can look great.

Ive been surprised how long the Vintage look has stayed around, IE bunting, Cath Kidston, cup cakes
 
I don't understand why people pay high prices for items made from recycled wood but i do enjoy making things for myself from recycled wood.
I have to say that there is an architectural salvage yard near me and you can't even give them old bricks or cast iron guttering all they are interested in is old wood that they convert into rustic furniture and sell at prices you would not believe.
Perhaps they have got things right.
 
It's nothing new. There was a spate of it after WW2, when magazines ran features on how to make furniture out of orange boxes. The difference now is that there is no real attempt to disguise the origin of the wood or work around defects.
 
AndyT":27yaaqwq said:
It's nothing new. There was a spate of it after WW2, when magazines ran features on how to make furniture out of orange boxes. The difference now is that there is no real attempt to disguise the origin of the wood or work around defects.

That's absolutely true, of course; though just after the war both furniture and reasonable timber were very hard to come by, so there was a strong incentive to use 'make-do' methods - it was out of necessity, not fashion. Now, it's a fashion, pure and simple. Like all fashions, it'll wither eventually, and we'll look back in horror, just as we do at panelling-in Victorian bannisters and fireplaces, Artex on ceilings, and flared trousers.

(Just imagine a guy in flared trousers sitting on his pallet chair in his Victorian terraced home with it's Artexed ceilings, panelled-in fireplace, Magnolia emulsion and fondue set on the pallet table. That should kill the idea off....)

Pallet wood is still a good source of stock timber for some jobs - just try and make some efforts to hide it's origins, that's all!
 
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