Steel Pipe Bar Cart

After spending the last few month looking for the perfect bar cart, Yvonne and I finally decided to build our own. I had seen book cases and dining tables built out of steel pipping so I decided to try that as the base of the design. After measuring out the space that we wanted it to occupy, I came up with a rough sketch.

I decided to forgo the two cross beams in the original design and go with two “H” structures instead. After looking at the pipes in person at Home Depot, I went with 20” pipes for the bottom and 10” pipes for the middle.The pipes were pretty greasy, so I put them through a good scrub before piecing them together. One of the trickier parts of the build was screwing in the pipes to a uniform height. Some of the pipes and flanges would screw in more than others. You just have to keep working at it to get them at the right height.Before ordering the wood for the top and bottom, we measured out the exact depth and width that we wanted. We came up with 30” x 17” for the bottom board and 32” x 18” for the top.

We had a great experience at Fine Lumber & Plywood when we built our dining table, so we went back to them again for the wood on our bar cart. We decided to go with the same wood, soft maple, so it would match our dining table. They were able to plane the wood down to size for me and I cut it to length. I used a Kreg Jig set to drill four pocket holes to connect the boards together. After piecing the boards together, I gave it a nice sanding to even out the surface and to bevel the edges and corners. Wipe off the saw dust and on goes the polyurethane.

After we let the polyurethane dry and set, we started by screwing in the pipes to the bottom board. I found some industrial looking casters at Home Depot as well which fit the design of the cart. For the middle shelf, I ended up sanding down the corners a few millimeters and made sure it fit snugly into it’s space.

After sanding down the polyurethane with some #0000 Steel Wool, the cart was ready to get stocked! The middle shelf was the perfect high for wine glasses and cups. The bottom shelf is for all the alcohol. We’ll be using the top for the ice bucket, cutting board, and prep space. Who wants a drink?