The New Pallet Book

by Chris Peterson

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The New Pallet Book is a style and tutorial guide for building projects from reclaimed pallet wood written by Chris Peterson. First published in 2017, this reformat and re-release is due out 7th Sept 2021 from Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint. It's 144 pages and will be available in paperback format.

This is a very useful book and there's something truly fundamentally appealing about making attractive home and garden projects out of reclaimed/found materials. It feels both frugal and satisfying. The author gives a good overview on sourcing, evaluating (some pallets are treated with toxic chemicals and Peterson shows how they're labeled), sorting, and using reclaimed wood. The book includes multiple methods of deconstructing pallets and smoothing out the resultant wood in order to reclaim as much material as possible. There are also good tips for arranging the reclaimed wood into similar widths and qualities to make selecting project materials easy and painless. I really liked the safety minded tutorials on reclamation and deconstruction. There were a lot of good tips on sourcing pallets also, along with good and sensible advice on being responsible (don't steal, ask permission, etc).

The book is arranged in thematic chapters, starting with an introduction on sourcing and deconstruction, availability and safety. The following chapters have projects grouped roughly thematically: outdoor/garden, storage, and home projects. The projects each contain a description, tools and materials in a bullet style list sidebar (measurements in American standard units only), followed by step-by-step instructions. All of the tutorials contain multiple color photos, both process photos and finish photos.

The projects are very professional looking, attractive, and useful. Some of them are rugged and rustic looking, but in general, they definitely don't look like reclaimed pallet wood. There are some quick projects which would make wonderful gifts.

This would make a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, maker's groups, activity groups, scouting, 4-H, community gardens, smallholders, DIY/woodworkers, and similar.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.