Anyone who has ever taken a commercial flight would likely knows what a beverage cart looks like. They are tall, narrow carts with a front door that opens to reveal a stack of drawers sized to fit cans of soda, beer, those little bottles of booze, snacks, and so on. I’d never really thought of these carts as “good design” until I saw how German design firm bordbar was making super interesting furniture inspired by them.

When we needed a cabinet to sit under a desk with storage for files and other desk accessories, we were inspired by bordbar’s inspiration and built this piece. The materials are walnut and brass for the case, and maple for the drawers. The drawer slides are machined from solid brass. The drawer faces have old-fashioned brass label holders for identifying what’s in the drawers. And the drawers sit behind a door with a decorative walnut grille supporting a large single pane of glass.

While the form of this piece is very much inspired by something modern—the airline beverage cart—it’s construction and detailing was inspired by classic materials and techniques. We love these sorts of projects where inspirations collide, and the result here is, in our opinion, quite nice.