Pallet and Shims Wall Art

A few weeks back I did a shim sunburst mirror project. Apparently I got shim fever because a few weeks later I got another project idea to do with shims.

In my master bedroom next to the closet door was a bare wall with a lonely chair.  The wall has stayed bared for some time because I could not decided what I wanted to do with it.  Should I put shelves, art work, mirror, pictures or a wall decal?  What to do?

I decided I didn’t want to do pictures because I already had one wall full of pictures.  I didn’t want do shelves because I was afraid we’d take the shelves out when coming out of the closet. A mirror or mirrors was also out because there are already mirrors up on other walls.   That left me with the option of art work or a wall decal, but the walls of this house are textured.  I hate textured walls! Which means also no wall decal, art work it is then.

When we were still living in Tulsa I made a blackboard/pin board with a pallet but, in this house I no longer had a place for it. That’s when I go the idea to glue a bunch of shims to it and see what happens.  All I did with the pallet before was clean it off and remove any nails that were sticking out.  I then glued a simple thin board on top.  Unfortunately I can’t remember what kind of board it was, but for this purpose any thin wood board will do.

I bought several packages of both short and long shims.  I then took a few of them and painted them yellow and blue and started gluing them randomly on the board.  Some met edge to edge and some of them I overlapped.  As you glue the shims on you will need to weigh them down with something to let them set.  I found that if I didn’t do this some of the shims did curl.

There is really not rhyme or reason to my pattern.  I just glued them on how ever inspiration moved me.  My goal was to create a patchwork kind of pattern. Here you can see it from the side and see how some of the shims overlaid each other creating texture.

Then I asked the handy husband to screw hanging tabs on the back and hang the very heavy pallet on the wall. I also found a cool shelf kind of thing and thought to use it as small table.

It’s not perfect, but I am digging how it looks.  The best part?  It was crazy cheap.  Free pallet, $20 in shims, some old cans of spray paint and a butt load of glue. TA-DA funky art work for the wall.  And, I don’t have to stare at a bare wall any more.  Win-win!