The description the building of Shlomo's palace - The House of the Lebanon Forest - interrupting the detailed description of the  of the building of the Mikdash, raises troubling questions as to the relationship between the Mikdash and the palace. The bulk of chapter 7 deals with the elaborate metalwork of the Mikdash - the two pillars, the Yam, the Mekhonot and the Kiyorim. Many of these vessels seem to include imagery which reminds us of the Merkava imagery. When Ahaz king of Yehuda later rebels against God and adopts an Assyrian deity, he rids the Mikdash of the vessels with the Merkava imagery. 

Maaseh Merkava - The Divine Chariot
Shlomo's Palace
Yakhin and Boaz
Kiyor - Wash Basin
Yam Shel Shlomo
Ahaz
Courtesy of the Virtual Beit Midrash, Yeshivat Har Etzion