DIY Pallet Tray for your Coffee Table and More

I recently shared my secret for taking pallets apart. After taking the pallet apart, I ended up with some great pallet boards to make this DIY Pallet Tray to keep my remotes organized on the coffee table.

easy to remove pallet boards

If you’re like me, you may have too much stuff cluttering up your coffee table. I have too many remotes (this isn’t even ALL of them—some of them are hidden away on the lower shelf of the coffee table)

use caution when cutting pallet boards

This pallet had been repurposed and reused many times—it had extra nails everywhere. The extra nails had been cut off by someone else, and I had to be oh so careful using the saw.

You can see that the part of the frame on the right has been lightly sanded.

I glued and clamped my frame. After the Gorilla Glue set up, I then used a few finish nails to secure the frame boards. Do you see all the nail holes? Those are NOT mine.

I cut my pallet boards to fit the frame. After the frame (glue) set up, I did a dry fit. Uh Oh! Do you see the problem? I wanted to use the natural curve of the pallet board to make the “handle” of the tray. Doing it this way, there would be no way to attach that middle pallet board.

plan b for the pallet tray

Instead of three pallet boards, it was now going to take four pallet boards turned cross ways instead of long ways. (Yeah, very technical jargon there)

I used my Ryobi Nail Gun to shoot finish nails through the boards into the thicker pallet frame boards.

AGAIN—notice all of those nails cut off. Remember, when I dismantled this pallet, I removed all the nails that were protruding. I did not cut off a single nail.

The old (cut off) nails definitely add to the rustic(ness) of this tray. Nails on the dark pallet boards in addition to the nails on the thicker pallet frame boards.

I love that the stamp shows on the inside of the tray. It’s stamped “heat treated”, but I sort of doubt that the older pallet boards were heat treated.