The Heaviest Piece of Furniture I Own

For those of you who have helped me move the lockers, you know that they’re quite a bear.

A little back story: A few years ago, I found these very large, vintage, rusty, green lockers at a local antiques store and immediately fell in love. I offered $200 cash and took them home a couple of days later. At the time, I lived on the first floor of an apartment building with relatively large doorways and a friend and I were able to get them into my bedroom as console table-like extra storage.

Here’s a picture of them the day I found them

Fast forward a couple of years and I’ve moved three times, twice into second floor dwellings but with elevators both times. It’s a miracle, however, that my friends keep me around – and keep offering (agreeing?) to help me move.

At some point in there, I decided it was a good idea to start sanding them down. I’m sure this was because of the rust but it didn’t really occur to me that an inconspicous test patch was necessary. I started with a door face. In my apartment living room. On a Saturday afternoon. That was the only door that ever got sanded. Attractive, no?

When I moved into the Isthmus House, I asked my friends to please leave them in the driveway (with a tarp around them!) because I knew I had some work to do on them.

I was hoping to use them somewhere in our floor of the building but they’re just too big at about 21 inches by 6 feet. So, instead, I came to the troubling decision that I could either sell them or adapt them for use in the upstairs kitchen.

I spent the majority of a weekend afternoon sanding down all of the straight edges and doors outside in my driveway because The Roommate was out for the day and I feel like you’re allowed to be a little louder in your yard on a weekend afternoon.

After about 2 and a half hours I'd made it this far:

Once the edges and doors were all sanded, it was pretty obvious that The Roommate and I weren’t going to be making it up the narrow stairs with these on our own so I called my friend Joe, who is probably the most understanding and reliably helpful person on the face of the planet.

We decided it made the most sense to get a small piece of particle board for directly under the lockers so that they could sit in the  upstairs kitchen where I’m making them into extra “cabinetry.” The move upstairs wasn’t a ton of fun (deadlifting 100 pounds on stairs isn’t usually) but the rust is gone and the insides of each locker have a fresh coat of shiny, white paint. All that’s left is a countertop, which I’m working on.

Now that they’re in, the lockers look great in the kitchen and give an unexpected industrial feel in a pretty traditional home (picture to come!). It took 4 moves, about seven dedicated hours and a ton of muscle but I’m glad we were able to rework and repurpose the lockers and find them a place in my home. And I’m sure Joe and friends are glad they won’t be moving again for a very long time.

Update: I used these in my workshop for quite a while after this post and they worked beautifully. When I pulled everything out of the upstairs workshop to move it to the basement, these went into the garage sale due to lack of space. I think that was the right decision but I don't think I made the right decision sanding the faces of them. I wish I'd left them alone. Do with that information what you will but remember that original is best 99% of the time and this wasn't a good exception.