Hello friends. About a year ago, I started a project to build a bar for my house. The previous owners had some kind of popcorn machine in the same spot, but considering its proximity to the wet bar and not finding anything suitable for that spot that was commercially available, I decided to build my own.
Re-watching all of Cheers for the umpteenth time also helped.
I feel I need to mention from the get-go that this project was built with absolutely no plans other than those I had in my head. I shot from the hip for this entire project. Considering this is my first real woodworking project (seriously), I'm impressed with how good it came out.
The first step was to figure out how big it was going to end up being. The actual area is pretty small and I didn't want or need anything tremendous, just a basic but nice serving/utility station that drinks can sit on and be a fancy spot for my mini-fridge. So I started by cutting and laying out some 2x4s to the general shape of the frame.
Standard bar height is 42" so the plan was for 39" 2x4s standing vertical, with a horizontal 2x4 on top and one across the bottom, for a total of 42" of height. Then it was time to build the skeleton.
The part I failed to take into consideration was the quarter-inch top, so the total height ended up being a hair over standard. I'm not too worried about it, honestly. Next, I started building the internal shelf support structure by adding rails to the inside-left side of the bar. The inside-back wall was the first to go up, using a piece of leftover pressure-treated wood I had sitting in my garage.
The plan ended up being for an open shelf area on the left side of the bar, with the bottom being nice and tall to hold all kinds of liquor bottles, and a much shorter shelf up top to keep small items like rocks and shot glasses, bar towels, snack bowls, and what have you. The original idea was for a half-open, half-closed cabinet area, but the fully-open shelf ended up being far more convenient. The refrigerator compartment was intentionally built tall enough to accommodate mini-fridges up to 33" in height, in case the one that's there now ever dies and I decide to buy a taller model.
Thanks to my dad being a skilled electrician when I was growing up, a lot of that knowledge transferred and I have a good deal of experience with electrical stuff. So while I was assembling the interior walls, I also included two built-in outlets in the bar - one at the rear-bottom of the refrigerator compartment:
...and a second one on the outside of the bar, near the top. This one has USB ports, so friends have a convenient spot to charge their phones if needed.
Now one thing I wanted for my bar is edge moulding that runs along the edges of the bar top. The lip is there so if you spill a drink, the liquid doesn't roll off the edge of the bar. Half-round moulding isn't something I've seen in any store in my area and two pieces of quater-round jammed together would look like crap, so I bought some 1" closet dowels and made my own:
With the frame and the internal structure completed, it was time to start putting up the outer walls. I'm still not thrilled at the perpendicular grain from one panel to the next, but I guess that gives it some character. (Plus, the dark color at the end does a good job of hiding it anyway.) After the outer walls were complete, I gave the outlets a final test.
With the base structure completed, I started assembling the decorative areas and discovered that I made a mistake calculating the lengths of the lip for the bar top. I failed to consider the additional half-inch added by the outside decorative panels, meaning that all four of my half-round lengths was an inch too short. Off to Home Depot to pick up more closet rod, this time cut to the correct length. From there, everything started moving quickly. The front of the bar was divided into two panels, and all of the hard angles were finished with quarter-round. Countersunk the nails, filled the nail holes and gaps with wood filler, and gave the whole thing a good sanding.
The shelving area was last, and happens to be my least favorite part of the bar. It's functional so I'll live with it, and it was a good lesson. With everything finally put together I gave everything one last sanding, and construction was complete.
With time to do things eaten away by other projects and my job, that's pretty much how it sat for the past 9 months or so. As of this past Wednesday, I got tired of seeing the thing unfinished every time I came downstairs, so I gave one last push and hit it with some flat black to match the rest of my furniture in the living room.
At this point I can safely call it "mostly done," as all I need to do at this point is drop a protective epoxy layer on the bar surface and add some felt to the shelves.
I'm pretty happy with it. Most of all, because I built something! :)
Submitted April 09, 2016 at 01:11AM by ccurzio http://ift.tt/22iyFq9 woodworking
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