Black Pipe Bar Shelf

Well Hello Lovelies!  It's been a minute, eh?

So, I wanted to post something I made last winter, cause I'm pretty proud of it and it took a lot of research and thinking to pull it off.

Here is the finished product:

Since finishing our porch Lounge (we're actually calling it the Hotel Lobby Lounge Bar now) we knew we needed something to hold all our booze... not that we have a problem, but we are adults and every adult that drinks needs a nice place to store everything, amIright?

So I started googling black pipe bar carts and bar shelves... there are some really neat ideas out there, but nothing has clear instructions on how to build it, so ... not only do I get to create my own design, but I get to figure out how to make it too (insert sarcastic great! here).

First things first, Steve wanted it to have nice thick wood, so we hit up a local lumbar yard and find some nice walnut and have them make the shelves for us (glue up, plane, etc.) - work we're not capable of doing because we just don't have the tools or experience.  We want them right.  They turned out beautiful, so the next step is to sand and poly them, the first coat of poly turned out so wonderful and really brought out the grain in the wood... I was so impressed and so much more excited to put this shelf together now that the wood is turning out so great!

raw wood on the right, wood with one coat of poly on the left

I really cranked up the contrast on this one to show the deep grain in the wood

So now the plan is to draw up the shelf; we had a lot of talks about what we wanted in this shelf, ultimately we wanted a big bottom shelf to hold bottles of booze and a top shelf working surface.  The middle shelf had a lot of different plans: wine bottle holder? shelf for glasses? hanging wine glasses? wine bottle storage plus a place for glasses?  We decided that we have enough wine bottle holders around the house so we really don't need more places for bottles, so we'll just make the middle shelf a skinny shelf to hold a few glasses for making drinks in and whatnot.  I drew it up, because there was no way I could figure this out without having it clearly measured out and figured out in advance.. I needed to buy black pipe based on dimensions.

So we obviously had the shelves made to fit the space we planned to put this shelf, we also bought a piece of Maple for the skinny middle shelf (the Walnut shelves were far from cheap and we didn't want the overall weight to be too much to move around on our own).  I put poly on the maple shelf too, but it wasn't exciting enough to take a picture of, apparently.  

So next is to spend hours in the black pipe shelf aisle at Menards to figure out what length pipe I could use where, where I needed connectors, how I was going to do the feet, how to incorporate a 'railing' of sorts so bottle aren't falling off with our old house and the floors being shaky and unbalanced.  SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.  I ended up pretty frustrated after my first visit... so I quit.  I told Steve I'd never be able to figure this out and told him we'll just build something else with the wood we bought.  He knows me well enough to know that I don't quit anything and sometimes I just need time to process and think.  So he left it alone and told me if I need help, he will go sit in the aisle with me and help me figure it out.

FFWD a few weeks and I decide I'm ready to think about it again.  I ask him to join me in the black pipe aisle.  we make a night of it.  I show him my drawing and explain all the thoughts, dimensions, and ways to make everything equal out to our shelf depth.  We end up figuring out what we need for the most part.  

There was a lot of frustration in this stage because, apparently black pipe doesn't just screw together... yeah, you heard that right... you buy pipe, fittings, etc and you can't just screw it together.  After talking with some people at work I realize that I need to have some special sanding paper for pipe (cause the threads often have burrs on them) and a lubricant that makes the pipe threading easier.  After spending a few nights watching Big Mouth while peeling stickers off pipe, sanding the ends of all the pipe, and ruining my nails in the process, I finally can make some connections!!

If only I had a nice shelf to store all my alcohol bottles... I went through many drinks making this damn shelf.

I didn't take any photos while I was making the shelf, but basically, I took and made all the arms that  would hold the shelves first and then connected them from the bottom up.  I did have to solicit help from Steve a few times to be some muscle for me... turns out you have to get each pipe to line up perfect to connect the next, but you can't have it too loose or else it's wobbly.  I really didn't know this was going to be as much work as it was.

After I got the frame together, I had Steve figure out the best way to connect the shelves (having 2 cats, I wanted them to be screwed on, so nothing would move).  Additionally, the black pipe connections made the wood wobble so we needed to make sure they were secure in the same spots the entire length of the board.

He did a great job getting everything in place for me and I am so thankful for having such a supportive husband that is willing to help me and smart enough to figure this shit out when I can't.

Here are a few photos after I got everything in place and while I was figuring out what things to put on the top shelf.  We also have a nice fancy beverage center next to the shelf for our cold items:

~Cheers~
Ang