I wanted to give my home office a slight industrial feel so I decided to build myself a desk using metal piping as the framing material. I browsed around on the internet and found some ideas and then sketched out my design. It would have two shelves on one side and a single shelf on the other. Here is my initial design sketch.
First, I went onto Zoro.com to order black metal 1" piping. Because I had different structures on each side (2 shelves vs 1) I guessed at my pipe lengths to make the entire puzzle go together. I wasn't quite sure how the fittings and threads would match up to the pipe lengths, but figured I would give it a go.
Once the pipe and fittings arrived, I cleaned them with a de-greaser so that my hands would not get as dirty but also mainly so that when it came time to paint that the paint would adhere to the metal better. Here are all my ordered parts based on my plan above.
Next I started putting the parts all together. My part count requirements were dead on, however my fear about the fitting design on one side possibly not matching the other were realized, and one portion of my desk ended up being about 2 inches too long.
So I went back onto zoro.com and bought a couple of 4" pieces instead of the current 6" pieces to hopefully correct and make everything match. This time I got it right!
Next I needed to build the top. My goal was to build the top and the shelves from reclaimed barn wood. I found a place south of Bend in La Pine and went down and picked out some awesome old 2x8's for the top and 1x12's for the 3 shelves. Here are the 4 2x8's after some sanding. One of the pieces was actually the edge of a tree so decided to use that for the front edge of the desk. Note the great old cut marks from a large circular saw when they were originally cut. Next I put clear polyurethane on them to harden the surface and bring out the grain/color better. I ended up putting 3 coats on the top.
Meanwhile I took the pipe frame and painted it a hammered brown by Rust-oleum.
Lastly I took the old reclaimed 1/x12's, and did some minimal sanding just to get the burs off the wood. Since they are shelves only and not a work surface, wasn't as worried about getting them smooth. I cut them to length to rest on the pipe framing and gave them a couple coats of clear polyurethane. They turned out really nice with a very rustic look.
Here is the finished Product in my office!
