Updates have been slow

It's been quite a while since my last blog post. Seems like just yesterday I finished the bar, yet it was about 8 months ago. Wow.

Anyway, in that time it feels like I have done so little, but looking back at my pics I realize that I've actually been quite busy.

Going back to the rationale for the bar, I built it to better determine how to build the step between the dining room and living room. It took a bit to figure out what I wanted to do with it. Have a whole step all the way across? Then how would I stand near the bar? Where would I get a 12 inch wide, 15 foot long board nice enough to use as a step? I finally decided to build a 1/4 wall along the exposed brick wall, then make a seat at both the living room end of that wall as well as at the bar.

Below are the results (and the process):


So now that the step and bar are complete, what next? Well I first looked into doing the wiring, replacing the last bit of knob & tube that is left in the house. Of course, nothing being simple, the knob/tube is wired in a way that I can't do it piecemeal. All or nothing, and the circuit is down until all of it is replaced. So I decided that my time might be better spent rerunning the plumbing and wire to the upstairs bath.

The plumbing was a mess (as can be seen in the house pics earlier) within the ceiling of the dining room. It turns, jogs, cuts back, and generally is crazily run to get to the sink. Little did I think the same was true in the basement. Apparently someone thought it wise to run the hot water line an extra 15 feet or so, running past where it needed to go up the wall and back on itself. So I figured I could rerun it with a tad less line.

I chose to use PEX tubing instead of copper. First, it is WAY cheaper. Second, I didn't have to sweat many joints, making life much easier during installing. Not to mention I could run the PEX with slight bends, curves, and not need to be perfect. I bought 100 feet of PEX, the tools, the connectors and all other miscellaneous for slightly more than what 100 feet of copper pipe alone would have cost me. So here's a few shots of the plumbing, even though it is not the most beautiful stuff to look at:


Another bonus of the plumbing work was that I could easily replace the ancient nasty toilet in the bathroom. We opted to install this dual flush from Home Depot that scored well in testing, and it cost only $100:
Toilet

And now onto the next project....ductwork reinstall followed by refinishing the wall I removed to do the plumbing and wiring to the bathroom.

THE bar...

My office was closed between Christmas and New Years so I had about a week off. I had (have) so many projects to work on around the house, where do I start. The bar.

Okay, most people wouldn't think that a bar is the best place to start rebuilding after all I have ripped out of my house. I do, for a few reasons. I enjoy drinking, we enjoy having others over to drink, and actually, I need to build the bar before I can figure out where the step needs to go. So bar it is.

I began working on it conceptually by laying out my mental plan on the floor with tape. I wanted a bar to fit a fridge, or at least have room, so I planned a two foot deep bar, a space and a back bar area. WAY too big when I laid it out. It took up literally a quarter of the room. So I scaled it back a bit.

After the tape came the cardboard estimates. I took old boxes and made a cardboard bar to see how big it would be. I decided on dimensions based upon some standards for bar height and depth, etc. I ended up with a design of 5 feet wide, a one foot deep cabinet, and an 18 inch bar top with a 10 inch overhang. I also realized building a back bar could wait until phase 2.

I spent the week off of work building, cutting, sanding, to make the bar. No where near done in a week. So I begin working at night and weekends to complete it. I finally finish on January 24th, a mere three and a half weeks later.

All in all, I am quite proud of myself. I used nearly all salvaged materials from my walls. The shelves, bar top and some small fascia boards were purchased new. The bar structure, the boards, the rails, even the corner trim was all made from the pieces I've removed from the walls of the house. I used bottlecaps laid randomly and epoxy-ed in place as the bar top. A large amount of this bar is reused and repurposed.

So here it is....the process from cardboard cutout to final product: