Building Furniture with Pipe and Fittings

Not so long ago, if you wanted a customized piece of indoor or outdoor furniture you most likely had to pay a craftsperson or company to make it for you. Although the option of DIY furniture design was always available, you were like a ship without a sail if you lacked the serious carpentry or welding skills necessary to execute the design.

Today, you can fearlessly voyage into the great home, office or industrial furnishings unknown by building furniture with pipe and fittings. Sleek, beautiful and durable fittings allow you to transform ordinary galvanized pipe into industrial-style works of art whose form flows almost as easily as its function.

The Pros and Cons of Building Furniture With Pipe and Fittings

The first major advantage of using pipe and Kee Klamp fittings to design and construct your own furniture pieces is its inherent versatility. You can just as easily build a bench out of fittings and pipe as you could a shelf, a coffee table, a retail display rack, an outdoor kitchen or a desk.

Truth be told, your imagination is the only limit to the types of furnishings you can create using pipe and fittings. Once you learn the basics of building furniture with pipe and fittings, you'll quickly begin to see how you can upcycle unused home, office and industrial items into highly utilized, operative furniture.

Building furniture with pipe and fittings can be very cost-effective. Building your own desk made with a custom wood top and an adjustable pipe and fitting base can be around half the cost of buying a high-end adjustable desk. In addition to the initial cost, you will get decades of use out of your piece, as well as the added benefit of modularity.

Kee Klamp Fittings vs. Threaded Pipe Fittings

Threaded pipe is a type of connecting pipe that allows you to screw pipes into each of its individual prongs. Although threaded pipe is usually available at your local hardware store, it is always sold at the same predetermined lengths. Therefore, this type of pipe does not give you much room to customize your furniture designs.

On the other hand, Kee Klamp fittings come in over 80 types and sizes. Kee Klamp fittings, made from cast iron or corrosion-resistant aluminum, give you an abundance of custom furniture design items simply unmatched by the available threaded pipe offerings. These types of fittings can also be powder coated to any color. Check out this short video to learn more about Kee Klamp pipe fittings.

The Rising Popularity of Pipe Furniture

The recent economic downturn left many people searching for new ways to create high-quality, inexpensive functional furnishings. Since building furniture with pipe and fittings is more cost-effective over the long haul than traditional, factory-made indoor and outdoor furnishings, this type of DIY custom furniture is currently rising in global popularity.

Examples of Pipe and Fitting Furniture

Here are a few examples of furniture built with pipe. If you like what you see, be sure to check out our pipe furniture gallery which includes many, many furniture projects submitted by our customers.

 

Custom Outdoor Kitchen Island

One of our customers built this beautiful custom outdoor kitchen out of aluminum pipe and Kee Lite fittings. The corrosion-resistant fittings and pipe will stand up to the elements. The simple tiered design will remain stylish and shiny for years and years to come.

 

Modern Kid's Pipe Table

The clever design of this modern pipe table lends an air of openness to a child's room. The functional piece works well as a desktop which can be lifted as the child grows into a young adult.

 

Rimini Pipe Couch

Nicola Stäubli designed this one-of-a-kind Rimini couch using an inflatable mattress, climbing rope,Kee Klamp fittings and aluminum pipe. You can recreate the look with a futon mattress for a dorm room or man cave.

 

Rolling Snare Drum Rack

This rolling snare drum rack illustrates the true versatility building furniture with pipe and fittings affords you as a business owner or collector. The beauty of its industrial design lies within the fact that it can be modified and re-erected to store other types of retail items or collectibles in just a few hours.

 

Basic Rolling Shelf

You can use this basic rolling shelf to store shoes, accessories, gardening supplies, pantry items, tools and much, much more around the house. You can also use the shelf to move warehouse supplies and store plant and industrial materials.

 

We hope these projects have proved inspirational. If you need any design assistance, reach out to our helpful projects staff.