How to Make Adirondack Chairs Out of Pallets: A Helpful Guide

If you’ve had any experience in shopping for patio furniture before, you’ll know that it often comes with a pretty expensive price tag so you may be considering making your own.

Pallets are fantastic for using to make furniture, and there are literally 100’s of different things you can do with them. The best thing is it’s pretty easy to get hold of them free of charge from local businesses.

To help you with your DIY project, we looked at how to make Adirondack chairs out of pallets so that you can enjoy comfort and style in your backyard for a fraction of the cost. 

Making Adirondack Chairs Out of Pallets

What You Will Need

• Approximately four dismantled pallets
• Wood screws (outdoor grade)
• Waterproof wood glue
• Saw
• Drill
• Tape Measure
• Pencil

Step-by-Step Instructions

Use the wider pieces of wood from around the pallets for the main structure of the chair and armrests. The slimmer pallet slats can be used for the seat and backrest. We’ve given some recommended measurements, but you can change them to vary the seat depth, width, height, and reclining angles.

Build the Frame First

1. You’re going to start with the arm structure. You will need two pieces of wood for the arms measuring 30 inches, and one cross piece measuring 33 inches.
2. Lay the cross piece on the floor horizontally, and overlay the arm pieces vertically on each side. Attach the corners using wood glue and three screws on each side.
3. You will need two leg pieces measuring 22.5 inches which you can now attach to the bottom front of your arm pieces with wood glue and three screws in each side. Leaving a few inches gap at the front of each leg will make the chair look nicer. Approximately 15 inches up from the bottom of the legs, measure up, cut, and attach a crossbar that will form the front of the seat.
4. Next up, you’ll be attaching the angled back legs which should measure around 40 inches. Shorter pieces will give you a steeper seat angle while longer pieces, a more gentle slope.
5. Line them up with your front crossbar and use your pencil to mark where you should cut them to make them flush against the front legs.
6. Attach them to the front legs of the chair in line with the front crossbar, angled, so that they hit the ground at the back.
7. Next up you’ll need another crossbar for the back of the seat. Lay a piece of wood, standing up against the original cross piece and find your desired backrest angle.
8. Mark up where it meets the back legs as this is where you will want to place your back crossbar. Measure up, cut, glue, and screw into place.

Attach Seat and Backrest Pieces

1. Measure the distance between the front and back crossbars, and then cut around six lengths of the pallet slats to make your seat. Attach the pieces to the top of the crossbars using wood glue and screw, leaving small gaps between each slat.
2. Next, turn your chair over so that it is lying on its front and you have access to the back of the chair.
3. Cut around six further pallet slats to a measurement of around 30 inches and attach the ends of the slats to the back of the back crossbar. As with all the attachments in this project, use wood glue and screws.
4. Turn the chair the right way up again and also screw the slats into a place where they rest against the original cross piece.

Sand and Protect

1. Sand the entire chair down to make it smooth to touch.
2. Wipe away any dust and residue created by the sanding process.
3. Apply your choice of wood sealant or stain all over the chair, remembering to make sure that it is suitable for outdoor use if that’s where you plan on using your new chair.
4. You will want to apply around three coats so each time you will have to wait for coat to completely dry, very lightly sand and wipe down again before applying the second and third coats.

Optional Extras

• Carrying handle: You can attach another pallet slat to the top of the back legs, a couple of inches back from where the legs meet the ground. This serves as a convenient carrying handle and is very useful for hauling the chairs around your garden.
• Extra arm supports: You can easily add in extra weight support underneath the armrests just next to the backrest on each side. We recommend doing this if you have often had kids climbing all over you. 

Pallet Paradise

How to make Adirondack chairs out of pallets is simple and easy if you follow these step-by-step instructions. You’ll actually find that the hardest part will be in dismantling all of the pallets!

Why stop there? You could try making two identical Adirondack chairs and then connect them by fashioning a wedge-shaped table out of pallets? You can even drill a hole through the back of the table to hold an umbrella in place.

You can create your beautiful garden furniture for the price of a few screws and some wood glue; furniture that would have cost you a small fortune in the garden center. Enjoy!