Industrial Dining

I found this metal cabinet on eBay for $25. A guy in Ditmas Park discovered it, originally used for machinist tools, while renovating an apartment building there. As soon as I saw it, I could envision it as an unexpected base for a dining room table. The 10 thin drawers would give a small apartment needed storage, plus it's a great conversation piece for guests.

I fabricated the top from walnut plywood with a solid walnut edge. The top is roughly 48" x 48".

The cabinet was only 16" high, and a table top needs to be at least 30" off the ground, so chairs and legs fit comfortably underneath. The chest also needed more visual heft to be in proportion to the square table top.

Therefore, I welded together pieces of 14-gauge, 1.5" square metal tube, forming two rectangular "legs." Then I blackened them to match the tones of the cabinet, so that the entire structure looks as if it were all made at the same time. Finally, I added rubber feet to the legs as a scratch-preventative for the apartment's wooden floors.


The steel rectangles are just wide enough to except the cabinet.

Fabricating custom steels brackets expedited the assembly process. I could have purchased some but they wouldn't have matched the black of the legs and cabinet.




I used self-tapping sheet metal screws in conjunction with the custom brackets to attach the two legs to the cabinet.

Eight total brackets hold the legs to the cabinet, while another four brackets attach the legs to the walnut top.

I'm going to replace the metal pulls on the cabinet drawers with small leather straps to add additional interest and to bring the tones of the walnut top into the base.

NOTE: The Heavy Chair is currently being fabricated, so I'll be blogging later about its final preparations.