Pallet Walls, sanding and sealing them in the Basement Bathroom

Returning to work on the Basement Bathroom by tackling the pallet walls. This Basement has been a LONG, slow process but, to be fair, its not where we live so its not on our “urgent” to-do list. Though we do hang out down here on the weekends especially it wasn’t until I upcycled an old toolbox in the bathroom here that I finally got motivated. We installed the commode and rolling doors for this space and finished up the living room. After that I realized there wasn’t a ton to do to finally have a completed bathroom for the first time ever so I got to work!

I put up the pallet walls several years ago and I didn’t do a half bad job at it. Its not exactly our style (and it is FAR from perfect) but why rip down walls that are functional?

But those wood walls couldn’t just stay like that. They needed to be sanded down, trimmed out in several places and then totally covered with several layers of polyacrylic.

I tackled this job in stages knowing that the result not only NEEDED to be done but I would also personally like the look of the pallet walls better once they were sealed and their deeper blues, greens and grays would really pop out.

I would have MUCH preferred to use my orbital palm sander to do all of this but even with a door and covering the doorway with plastic etc. I just shuddered at the amount of clean up that would entail.

So, I did it all by hand – it was a good work out and it is a small space so its not like it took me a ton of time.

I used 80 grit first, did all of the pallet walls with that and then moved on to 40 grit and then, finally I used 20 grit to get them pretty smooth.

Is it REALLY smooth? Heck no!

But its smooth enough that no one will be getting any splinters and that was my biggest concern.

I went ahead and sanded down the shelves I built beside the vanity, the frame I built for the mirror and the old cabinets as well.

Fun fact: the cabinets were built by my Grandparents and were in their own bathroom when I purchased the home and began the renovation! They were in good shape and I was so glad to be able to reuse them here!

The sink I pulled out of a shed around here at some point still in its original packing box and still wearing its original hardware. And, as you might expect, it works great! They just don’t make things like they used to…

With all the sanding complete I cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom and purchased a gallon of semi gloss polyacrylic by Minwax. (Sorry no pics of much of this process…)

I ended up doing two heavy coats on all of the pallet walls and added two more coats to the countertop, mirror frame and wood shelves too. The countertop is old oak I found out in the barn that I stained and sealed years ago. Unfortunately I have absolutely no photos of that project or the mirror frame project…

As you can see there’s still some work to do here!

The last major project in this room is painting out the cabinets and choosing hardware for them.

I’m still on the fence when it comes to the color I want to paint them though…

In the rest of the spaces down here we opted for white bead board on the walls so the pallet walls in this bathroom are a direct contrast. I was thinking of painting the cabinets out in white as well to speak to the white in the living space and try to brighten it up in here a little bit too.

(The reason I’m hesitating on the white is I planned to paint the cabinets in here the same color as the kitchen cabinets in the other room. But, because of the white walls out there, I want to do something a lot darker in the kitchen.)

As for all of the hardware (toilet paper holder, towel bar(s), shower curtain rod, cabinet pulls etc.) there really is only one choice in the matter and that’s me getting creative with black plumbing pipe.

We’ve used it so far for the open shelves in the living room and for the rolling door hardware and I want to keep that idea flowing throughout the entire basement.

(You’ll also notice I painted out the little door to our utility room black as well.)

As for getting those pallet walls done though I got quite excited! There’s not much left to having a finished bathroom basement down here for the first time ever!