You might know how to accessorize the ultimate man cave, but the right furniture can really make or break the look. Forgo the cozy love seats and traditional wood coffee tables for something with a bit more kutzpah. We’ve found the most Bad Ass Furniture known to man. Some are made out of real car parts, some covered with tattoos and some actually survived a war – all would make amazing gifts for men. Your work day doesn’t seem quite so bad when you know you have a way to escape. The F-4 Ejection Seat isn’t a replica, but the real deal that’s been welded to a custom swivel chair base. The chair has been left in its original condition to preserve its war-time history. Car enthusiast/furniture maker Steven Shaver wants you to bring your ride into your room with his amazing custom automotive furniture. Originally designed for an upscale car shop, he now offers his wares to the public. The Firebird couch features custom upholstery colors, embroidered car lettering and emblems on the rims.
Nothing spices up a boring meeting in the conferences room like sitting at the giant Airplane wing conferences table. The glass surfaces lets you peer into the structure of the wing and see the worn details along its surface. You’ll have a hard time focusing on the matters at hand while you imagine what it would have been like to pilot the old bird. It’s hard to give up that old heap of rusted metal you once called a truck. Sure, she’s pretty beat but you still see the beauty in that rusty hood. Joel Hester from Dallas, TX shares your sentiments and turns sheet metal from old American cars and trucks into beautiful tables. This table’s got a little bit of everything… a vintage carburetor, brass knuckles and carved tattoos. These manly accents compliment the soft black leather and alligator and stingray skin set on top of its solid mahogany base. This hodge-podge of traditional elegance and hardy masculinity make the Engine Coffee Table a one of a kind piece of furniture.
The aluminum frame is stripped down to expose the sleek detail of the elevators and rudders of this re-purposed airplane wing. The Mitchell Bomber was used primarily during WWII fitted with .50 caliber machines guns and ran strafing missions. Own your own piece of aviation history and use this beautifully finished Bomber Plan wing as your office desk. Not everyone who comes to your office will appreciate just how rare the 747 Cowling Reception Desk truly is. But real aviation enthusiasts will realize that only 2 or 3 of the jumbo jets are made each year and these salvaged cowlings are not easy to come by. Couple the desk with an aircraft seat and you’ve officially got the coolest reception set up ever. Take a boring and traditionally ornate chair from some era we could care less about (let’s guess Victorian or something) and stick a cool Skull tattoo design and suddenly it’s looking pretty awesome. The Tattooed Chair by Mama Tried features kick ass detailed artwork by tattoo artist Scott Campbell.
The dark wood and detailed black designs give it an overall ominous appeal that is undisputedly bad ass. Quite the upgrade from the little car bed you had when you were 6. This vintage car bed is made from real parts and of course features an awesome flame headboard that says this bed is on fire. The hood lifts up and doubles as storage space and the headlights are fully functional. What’s not bad ass about a chair made of chromed steel rims with flaming tires? The Milano Lounge Chair features inner-tube upholstery and is made of tires, handlebars and rims—all re-formed to create a cool custom lounge chair. This piece of furniture turns the form and purpose of oil drums completely on its side… literally. The bright orange Oil Drum Rocker has a seat made of highly sustainable waxen smoked bamboo and due to its shape rocks slightly. Unlike some similar oil drum projects this chair still looks pretty much like its original form and is instantly recognizable for what it once was.
Finding creative ways to divide your loft apartment that don’t look sorta girly can be difficult. We’ve seen those Japanese paper wall dividers, but if you have pets or clumsy friends it doesn’t take long to trash them. But a B707 Fuselage Room Divider should do the trick—no one’s breaking this divider, let along knocking it down. Look, I know you like your lazy boy, but only pansies sit on soft cushioned chairs meant to perpetuate their weakness. Real men only sit on rocks and chairs made out of lots and lots of guns. The Throne Of Weapons chair was made from all types of guns from all over the world but mainly Ak47s. What’s a real man do when he needs a coffee table? He just grabs an engine and slaps a pane of glass on top and bam—he’s got a coffee table. Now it’s ready to be covered with beer cans and bags of beef jerky. The Engine Coffee Table may lack detail, but it’s the simplicity of the concept that makes it so awesome. Check out more Cool Material
Last weekend, Roger and I found a mid-century Cole-Steel stenographer's chair at a little vintage shop in Wimberley, Texas. It was in good shape and had the original red vinyl seat, but the base was badly scuffed and rusted. We were planning for a staging project and were on the hunt for a chair to use at a desk. The compact chair seemed like a good fit, and the price was right - $45 - so we picked it up. After we got it home, we realized that the chair was a bit dingier than we'd initially thought. We work hard to make sure our staging projects stand out from the crowd. The furniture and artwork we use is unique; the polar opposite of "safe" staging. This chair had potential, but we needed to transform it into something special. Roger had seen a similar metal office chair with a drastically different finish. Instead of aging vinyl, chipped paint, and rust spots, this chair had been stripped down to bare metal and given a brushed look. It was shiny, attention-grabbing, almost influenced by a World War II fighter plane - but unfortunately priced at hundreds of dollars.
We decided to try to accomplish the same look on our chair for just a few dollars in supplies. I'm going to step through how I created this look. You might want to try this if you have an older piece of metal furniture in need of a bit of a facelift. Chairs or smaller objects are going to be the easiest to take on; desks and tables will probably require professional equipment. For this project, we used: Protective eye wear, a mask, and neoprene gloves (Believe me, you'll want these) Rags and drop cloths for the workspace Sand paper, a sanding sponge, and steel wool My trusty and much-loved Makita drill 3/4-inch crimped wire end brush drill bit Clear spray enamel or clear paste furniture wax Step One: The Teardown. I started by disassembling the chair. I removed the backrest and the back support bar. I disassembled the backrest in order to peel off the vinyl, and had to tear away the vinyl from the seat. I didn't really know what the chair was going to look like without the vinyl or whether it would make for an attractive chair afterwards, so this was a leap of faith.
Underneath the vinyl (which was held in place with some very old but stubborn glue) was some foam padding. I tore that apart and had to use a few scrapers to remove the last of it. You know how, when you bake a cake, there's that little bit of cake left in the pan that you have to scrape out? It looked exactly like that. Pretty sure it wouldn't have tasted as good, though. Step Two: The Paint Removal. I lucked out on a few parts of the chair. The backrest pieces were unpainted steel, so they were ready to be polished with no further work. I was hoping that, under the vinyl, the seat would also be unpainted, but no such luck. It had a thick coat of industrial gray paint that had to be removed. I'm going to say this again: It's really important that you wear protective gear for these next steps. The chemicals used for removing paint can do a lot of damage, and the paint itself could contain lead or other hazardous ingredients. Use thick gloves resistant to the paint stripper, a mask to keep out the dust, and goggles to protect your eyes from debris.
After cleaning off the painted surfaces of dust, foam bits, and glue residue, I used a fast-acting, spray-on paint stripper. It creates a foam coating on the painted surface and is supposed to take about ten minutes to soften the paint, after which you can remove the paint with a plastic scraper. My experience with the paint stripper wasn't exactly as advertised. The plastic scraper was only helpful in removing the leftover foam. I then tried steel wool and had better luck getting the paint to come off on some, but not all, of the surfaces. I then did another coat of stripper and left it on a bit longer. This time, I got the majority of the seat cleared of paint and made a little bit of progress on the base of the chair. Step Three: The Brushing. I used a variety of techniques to sand down the metal and give it the shiny, brushed look we wanted. I started out on some of the smaller areas using sandpaper and a sanding sponge. Then, for the larger areas and the still-painted base, I used my drill with the wire brush bit.
The drill did a great job of removing the remaining paint, pulling off any rust, and giving the entire chair an even, shiny finish. I constantly changed the angle of the drill as I worked on the chair. By mixing up the direction and angle, I was able to create the consistent brushed metal look I wanted. A couple of suggestions for those trying this at home: Make sure you're using a powerful drill; if it's battery powered, it needs to be a quality one with a backup battery. Running a drill continuously on high speed (which works better than low speed) is going to drain your battery very rapidly. If I were doing this again, I would get another brush bit with a larger surface area - this small brush was great for detail work but took too long to cover the larger surfaces. Step Four: The Sealing. Because bare metal is prone to rust, it's a good idea to protect the finish with some sort of coating. Options for this include a spray-on coating like Rustoleum's Crystal Clear Enamel or a clear furniture wax like Briwax.
The finished product hits the mark: it's attention-getting, retro, and full of character. Even better, we didn't have to spend hundreds to get it. If you have questions about doing a similar finish on your own furniture, ask us on Facebook. Chris Stout-Hazard leads product design and development for Roger + Chris and co-stars with Roger in Roger That. MORE ABOUT Chris Stout-Hazard Hot right now on Roger + Chris Infographic: How Big Furniture Companies REALLY Use Your MoneyWith most luxury furniture companies, only a fraction of each dollar you spend is actually used to build your sofa. Let's look at just a few of the other things you're paying for when you shop with big retailers.Restyling a Garden House: Paint It BlackA cute, 160-year old Italianate Victorian had the potential to be a stunning garden house - but only after taming the garden, adding style to the porches, and applying some unexpected new colors.Best Blue Velvet SofasWe've gathered some of our favorite sofas and armchairs in gorgeous blue velvets, along with design inspiration from around the web.