Yep. Another “best of” post. I’m still so jealous that this one isn’t mine. It’s so cool! But between our lack of wall space and lack of books, it would be pretty ridiculous in our place. I’ll have to settle for the hoarder amounts of other things. So, to round out the week, here’s Steel Pipe Shelves.
(Forward: I’m so excited about this post that I might scream. Why? Because it’s my FIRST GUEST POST!!! My friend, Jonathan Ortega (who some of us call “Johnny O”) graciously wrote a post about a project he recently finished. So, Johnny…take it away!!)
The Industrial Revolution ran from 1750 to 1850. Then bands like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry started a musical scene that we at the time called “Industrial.” Although don’t mention that to composer George Antheil who was putting sirens and airplane propellers into his music compositions back in the 1920′s and 30′s. Nowadays, it appears the home furnishing thinkers are being bit by the industrial bug. Remember the good old days when furniture was made with fine woods and fabrics? Not anymore. For example, this office set from Restoration Hardware has been out for a few seasons now:
SERIOUSLY, you want to make desks, and chairs, and coat racks, AND book cases out of old airplane metal?!!? What’s next, a stainless steel wallet with rivets? But apparently Restoration Hardware’s design was too subtle. I mean it looks like an airplane, but maybe that’s not enough, so this company decided to use actual airplane wings.
Call it industrial, recycling, or as all the hipstery, waxed mustachioed, furniture guild members are calling it, reclaimed. Or perhaps you’ve heard of the worst term yet: Architectural Salvage. Architectural Salvage is just a junkyard with high prices. But boy is their junk beautiful. Yes, sure, there is no place for you to put that 20 foot chandelier made from antlers, nor do you have the $23,000 to buy it, but if you did… I don’t know why but we’re all mesmerized by this, and I’m right in with all the other lemmings on this one.
If you do happen to find yourself in the reclaimed business, you’re going to see more traffic than the coffee pot at any given AA meeting, or the port-a-potties at Coachella, or metal detectors at a Dodger game. There are companies that make a fortune selling wood reclaimed from old 19th century barns from the South. God forbid you have an age-old barn sitting in the back woods of some abandoned southern town. If you do though, call me. Unless it’s full of Walkers, then I don’t know you, Zombie Lover.
Now, no man, or woman for that matter, is impervious to the trends with which we are bombarded. And lately, I had been seeing a lot of built-in bookshelves made out of wood and steel pipe. For reals, pipe like in Super Mario Brothers. Here are some examples:
And something about all that appealed to me, plus I had a barren home office. So I asked the Missus how she’d feel about some shelves like that and to my surprise she really liked the idea. So I started playing with the design. Instead of using 1/2″ pipe, I decided to go up to full 1″ pipe and instead of painting it matte black, I kept the stainless steel finish. I bought some real oak boards (sorry, nothing reclaimed) and started staining them. I took it slow, like “two turtles making love” slow. And eventually, about 3 months and probably $500 later, I had shelves. Here they are:
The hardest part was drilling the holes which had to be very precise. My pops helped me and we had to buy a special drill bit, not a hole cutting drill bit, more like a bit that planed the hole through. But other than that, it was a breeze and I got my industrial bookcase. I’m not super handy, so if I can do it, you can too. Or if you have a spare $7,000 hanging around, you can always call these people.
