I've always wanted a really long, thin desk. Somewhere to pile my mountains of pens and paper. A few months ago a door on the street caught my eye. I dragged it home and, with a little inspiration and help from Apartment Therapy and Mary Bicycles I built this beauty using pipes from the hardware store as the base. It's really sturdy and more than big enough to hold my mountains of paper scraps. All told it cost less than $100. If I ever find a great piece of wood I might swap out the top, but I'm really happy with it now.
You can see in one of the photos that one of the legs is a little crooked. Well, one swift kick and it straightened out. I'm sure that's not the proper way to do it, but it worked...
If you want to do this yourself it's really easy. The instructions on Mary Bicycles are great. I bought the pipe at Home Depot but got it cut down and threaded at a smaller plumbing store (I would have bought the pipe there too but they only sell it in 21-foot lengths, and most of the standard sizes from HD worked - it was just the four long pieces that had to be cut from 24" to 18").
8 comments:
What is that fitting between the Flanges and the Elbow?
What is that fitting between the Flanges and the Elbow?
It's called a nipple. Heh, I said nipple...
I am interested in doing something like this for dining table--
I looked for design with the support close to the top of the table/desk vs the stretcher bars running the length of table at bottom of frame...
this design has support framing right under the top...
would this be sturdy enough for dining table and not "flex"?
I know that sounds lstupid considering how heavy the pipe base is--but there are lot of turnings and ability for them to become loose over time...
Did you use any agent to "glue" the connections vs just torque?
How many flanges did you use to connect top to frame?
or did you use something different?
how much overhang do you think would work--before it became too unstable?
thanks for the info
TXnative
I used 5 flanges to attach the pipes to the wooden top. I find it to be quite sturdy. I think that the flanges at the bottom really give it a good base. Having a good piece of wood for the top is important too. I could see it flexing only if the top was not thick enough. For added sturdiness though you could surely add support beams at the bottom too. If you Google "salvaged pipe desk" you will find many possible examples.
I love this! I just went to the hardware store and scoped out the needed materials. Question: What size pipe did you use? 1/2 or 3/4?? Also, was it difficult to figure out given the directionality of the threading? I have heard that is tough... Thanks!
I used 1/2 inch. I'm not sure what you mean about the directionality of the threading - I just screwed them together and it was no big deal. I do recall a few moments of confusion but altogether the whole thing was assembled fairly easily. WAY easier than building an entire desk out of wood would have been, that's for sure!
Good luck :)
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