Pallet Sectional - Final Look, Cost

Ta-dah! Here's the final set up for our pallet sectional. (The project was prompted when a snow storm took out our old deck furniture.) I love that the new set up can seat a bunch of guests for dining or make a cozy place to nap away a lazy afternoon. Below is the cost and material breakdown.

• 8-wood pallets, 36"x48" each - $0
• 6 - posts used for backs; scrap pieces from Lowe's - $0
• 2-Beddinge futon mattresses, 55"x79" each (mattress 4" high, seat depth 31"), included covers - $35, CL
• 2-vinyl zipped mattress protectors, queen size - $25
• 1-32 oz 303 Products 30650 High Tech Fabric Guard w/ Water Repellant - $25.75 (paid $3.99 extra for 1-day ship) 
• 8 - Ullkatus Cushions/Pillows from Ikea, green - $32 (sold in outdoor section, presumably meant for outdoor use)
• 6 - Gulort cushion/pillows from Ikea - $18 (on clearance, believe they are being discontinued; treated w/ waterproofing spray)
• Total Cost: $135.75

Sets with similiar seating capability run in the range of $1,500-2,500. So I'm feeling good about our final costs. Plus, we went big. If you were doing, say, a loveseat, you could spend much less.

Other cushion ideas include crib or foam mattresses or old couch cushions. You could even look for actual outdoor cushions at Big Lots or end-of-season sales. I hear some people do that; use things for their intended purposes. :) I wouldn't know anything about that, though. I do know that I'm really happy basically having two beds on my deck. So is our dog Buddha.

Making Futons Rain-Ready

Two Beddinge futons for very little scratch--check! Pallets lined up and ready for use as a sectional--check! Now, making it so that the futons would survive the outdoors...a little trickier. 

There are sources for futon covers made in water resitant fabrics. The cheapest I found was the Futon Shop, at $215 for a queen size. (Beddinge is slightly longer than a regular full.) That's way over budget BEFORE I times it by two. 

Plus, my CL futon finds had each come with covers. It made sense to try to reuse those. I crossed ideas such as fashioning cushion covers from picnic blankets, drop cloths or duck cloth off my list. Now it was all about waterproofing what I had. Time to get creative, do some research and keep my fingers crossed.

I orded two vinyl, zipped queen mattress covers on Amazon for a total of $25 (from Shop Bedding). This was a little more than the cost of the plastic ones, but from what I read would last longer and was less likely to tear. I looked for covers that claimed to block allergens, under the theory that they'd block my mattresses from mildew. We will see. 

When it came to waterproofing the fabric, the search was a little more daunting. Ever heard of fluorpolymer? Nope? Neither did the thousands of people who sustained respitory injuries by inhaling it when they used waterproofing sprays. I'm sure there are safe useage guidlines, but I'd like to pass on the poison.

And now the questions. There are a number of 100% wax solutions, DIY and premade. But, will wax leave the fabric to stiff? And how long would it take to wax two big futons??? Nikwax offers a non-fluorpolymer spray, but how many buckets of that will I need? A friend suggested just using fitted sheets and pulling off when it rains, but it seems a shame to not use the covers which of course will fit perfectly and look much more put together. Ok, back to the blogosphere to look for a solution.

The Great (Outdoors) Cushion Search

Getting pallets to create an outdoor sectional was easy and free. A local farmer posts an ad on Craigslist every time he has some to be picked up, about once a week. The tricky part was deciding what to do for cushions. If you've looked into it, than you know that outdoor foam is super expensive. I would have spent over $300 for two bottom cushions the size I needed, and still needed to come up with covering.

Thus began an OCD CL search, along with research into how other people handled the outdoor cushion on a budget dilemma. (I know...first world problems.) Daily I looked for foam mattresses or mattress covers, twin mattresses, futons. Anything I could possibly convert for my uses. 

I was excited to find a Beddinge futon for $35 just up the street from me. At 55" x 79", it was near perfect. I told the seller I'd pay full price for just the mattress and he agreed. I thought maybe I'd cut the mattress in half and use it for my bottom cushions, figuring out the backs later, or perhaps forgoing them.

Of course, this plan didn't stop me for searching for another Beddinge; how much cooler would it be to have two futons for lazing around on outside? I lucked into somebody giving one away for FREE. He even loaded it in my car and everything. I <3 craigslist.="" nbsp="" p="">

Both came with covers, so that's another item off the list. They don't match, one is a gray/black cotton cover with a quilted look to it (pictured below, right). The other is a charcoal gray tweed-look fabric. I'm pretty sure we can make it look intentional though and make use of both.

Now, to figure out how to water proof them...