We hadn’t actually planned on doing a floating cabinet, but after the tilers had finished it seemed a pity to cover up the stunning floor – so we hit on the idea of doing a floating cabinet. One requirement though was that it needed to look like a smart box – but it needed to include nice big drawer to hide away all the usual bathroom clutter.
The only way I could think of pulling it of was to make a stiff steel frame which would be clad with the bamboo afterwards. Because it needed to be square, so the cladding would line up, I used 25 mm square tubing which made welding easier. The tubing was also pre-drilled at regular intervals so I could screw the cladding to the steel from the inside.
Here is the box getting its final coat prior to cladding.
Once the frame was painted, the 16mm bamboo cladding needed to be screwed & glued together (at this point you will discover how accurate and square your frame is). Mine was far from perfect but nothing a bit of planing and wood filler couldn’t fix. Here are some pix of the gluing and clamping:
Once the cladding was on, the rest was relatively easy – I spray painted the bamboo with clear Acrylac paint and cut out the holes for the basins. To mount the box on the wall I used Hilti HIT 150 chem fix with M10 threaded rod – if you haven’t used chem fix before you should, as it is way superior to expanding bolts and if done correctly as strong as the substrate, without putting unnecessary stress on it.
As I was basically fixing a ridged steel frame to rather fragile porcelain tiles, I hit on the idea of using a glue gun to make a gasket on the steel to tighten against. It seemed to work as the box is totally solid and nothing cracked while tightening up the bolts! With the box mounted the sinks could be installed plumbed and the large drawer installed. We omitted a handle to keep the illusion of it being a box. Here is the finished product: