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: