Let's Build A Bar
Part 3
The next step in our bar addition was to have cabinets built. As this project has progressed we've tried to do some things ourselves as time, and ability, allow. This was one of those steps where I had neither the time nor ability so we just threw money at it.
The cabinets were always going to have to be custom built as there is nothing even remotely uniform about our space. It took me a while to find someone that wasn't charging me like they were building me an entire house.
The crew basically just set up shop in one of our garages. It took them over a week, but I think they could have finished in a few days if they had wanted to. I kind of got the impression that they liked hanging out here so they dragged the job out.
One of the things they did was add some wine glass hanging racks under one of the cabinets. I gave them a wine glass and they did this (pictured above). When we started looking at it I realized that I had given them the thinnest and smallest wine glass we had (I'm no sommelier). I grabbed other examples and they re-did it to allow for a wider range of glasses to be stored.
They continued on day after day and it started to come together. I was happy with the progress but getting tired of having people in my house all the time.
They built all of the doors off-site and on the last day brought them over and installed them.
They also built this wine storage rack. It's simple, but the space wasn't really good for anything else.
We chose to go with pine for the framing and birch for the fronts because we thought it would make a really pretty surface once it was stained.
When the cabinet guys were picking up they said they would be back Monday to start staining. I realized as I was paying them for the cabinets that there had been a communications mix up in their billing. I don't typically talk about money on any blogs that I write regardless of whether they pertain to travel, cars, or projects like this so I'll just use fake numbers. When they sent me their proposal, let's just say it had $30 for raw cabinets, $40 stained. I assumed that the staining was $10....nope. They were going to charge me more to stain the cabinets than they did to build them. I said no thank you and paid them for what they had completed.
For staining I called my old buddy Estevan. He had painted our entire guest house and the outside of our main house and did a great job. He gave me a reasonable quote and got to work.
We went with a dark stain called Jacobean and I think it looks great. These pictures are before it was cleaned or sealed. It took Estevan about two and a half days to complete the cabinets and paint some walls. The house smelled awful!
With cabinets out of the way, and while we're waiting on the soda fountain set up, we have started to tackle surfaces. That's part 4.
2003 Mini Cooper S
I bought this S model in 2003 with maybe like 5,000 miles on the odometer. I already owned a 2002 Cooper and had really found it interesting but decided I wanted an S. Mini's were rare in Texas at the time - 2002 was the first year for them and there weren't any dealerships in Texas because of a legal dispute between BMW dealers or something like that.
The biggest difference between the base Mini and the S is the engine. It's bigger and has a turbo. They're both fun to drive, but the turbo makes quite a bit more power and makes the car feel a lot quicker than it is.
One thing about Mini's, and an ironic thing at that, is that they actually are quite roomy inside. I'm a big guy and I fit comfortably in the front seats. The interiors are kind of "fun". You have everything you need and it all kind of works. It's no Mercedes, but in the world of tiny Euro transport, it's a lot more interesting than a VW Polo or Honda Jazz.
They're also a lot more fun to drive. They put the wheels as far out at the corners as they could and that gives you the go-cart effect.
I can't remember how long I had the two Mini's. I also don't remember selling them, but I don't think I kept them too long. I'm really a big car kind of guy, and while I liked driving these, especially the S, the novelty wore off at some point.
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| My brother and me. |
It's interesting that this car was selected by my random program. Yesterday would have been my father-in-laws birthday and he had a Mini Cooper S in a very similar color combination to mine when he passed away a few years ago. In fact, when I started dating my wife her parents both drive Mini's. I believe my brother-in-law still has the S to this day.
Here's a picture of my father-in-law Alan trying to race has twin brother at Brainerd International Raceway. It was "Street Night at the Strip" and Nels' Uncle Paul had a '92 Plymouth Duster and they were going to square off. It never happened unfortunately due to rain.
Let's Build A Bar
Part 2
Now that we had the water line and electric lines in, the next step was to wall up the garage side. The driving force for this was the impending warmer weather here in Houston. I needed to get this wall up and sealed and open up a wall into the house before the garage turned into a 100 degree sauna for the summer.
For this step, I recruited my friend Barry. When my brother helps me with a project he's pretty much all in and his quality standards are better than mine. Barry, on the other hand, will always help me if I ask him, but he's more like reluctant help. He wants to get in, get it done, and get out! He's very good at stuff, just not as interested in "Scott's bar". So when Barry helps me I try to have everything ready to go when he gets there by already purchasing the materials and setting up all the equipment.
Sadly, it also means I didn't stop to take any pictures of this full day. We put up a plywood base and then a drywall exterior without overlapping any seams. It was a little tricky because we needed to leave an opening big enough for me to get through until I could open up a wall in the house.
The next step was kind of a big one - sort of the "no turning back now" step. I had to open up the wall into our kitchen and seal up the opening from the garage and it had to be done in one day.....we have cats....and children. This is the wall that was being sacrificed for my wife's wine cellar (That's what I started calling it just in case it became a disaster. I felt like it would soften the blow a bit if it seemed like I was just trying to do something nice for Nel).
I recruited my mom to keep the cats from getting into everything as I cut through the wall from the inside and also to hand me things from time to time. Cutting drywall makes a mess, so I taped up some plastic to attempt to minimize the dust. It helped, but it still got everywhere.
A bonus to having mom helping is that she constantly cleans. Every time I would cut a piece out she would stick her head through the plastic and sweep up everything.
After I got most of the drywall out I sliced away the 2 x 6 boards that had formed the curved wall and then.....cats! As George pokes his head in you can see why this had to be completed in a day.
I used an oscillating tool to finish cutting my opening and then I sealed up the open panels from the garage and job done. We now had an unfinished bar that was opened to the house! It could have stayed like this for a while....and it did.
Next I went nuts with expansion foam. This stuff is great if you're trying to seal up a room as best as possible. I used it everywhere there was a seam or a potential opening.
I also took the curved piece that had been the previous footer of the wall I cut out and used it as a header to finish framing up the top of the doorway. As I mentioned before, curved walls offer some unique challenges but re-using this piece did the trick for this one.
The next big step would be to drywall the room. Before I could do that I had to knock out a bunch of punch list items. One of them was rerouting the fresh air duct for the fireplace - which you can see in this picture. Another was doing a little framing to have a base for mounting the plywood in certain areas. You can see here where I kind of created a ceiling near the opening for the drywall to mount to. I also decided that this room might be slightly warmer than the rest of the house since it had no air vent and was on a garage wall. It actually needed to be slightly cooler than the rest of the house so I called my AC guy and he was able to splice into a duct and run a vent that blows into and across the bar. It works great!
I had the electricians come out for the 2nd time. Before we could put up the drywall I wanted to run wiring for a bunch of under-cabinet and over-cabinet and in-cabinet (you get the idea) lighting. The problem was that we didn't really have our cabinet layout finalized. Basically, we now would be dictating the cabinets with the location of the wires we placed. It should be fine, but it's probably not ideal.
At this point I also had to make a decision on size and location of a wine fridge. I had the electricians run a plug to the area I decided to place it in and ordered the fridge.
It fits!
Next up, insulation and drywall. Hanging drywall I could do myself, but the tape and texture part is kind of an art form. I found a guy and he did our small but complex job in a couple days.
This is where the drywall guys earn their money. Building the walls would be fine, but making them smooth and seamless is not something I would know how to do.
I also had him go ahead and tape up the new wall in the garage.
At this point we had a formed up room and a loose plan. We started trying to think about finishing designs but it's hard to do. As I said, we are taking this project sort of step by step and reevaluating after each one. Next time, cabinets!
Let's Build A Bar
Part 1
It's home improvement time again - or home destruction time, depending on how you look at it. Ever since we moved into this house a few years ago I have been convinced that there was a void behind our fireplace and sort of under the stairs. I tried to get plans from the builder with no luck. I was also convinced that the space would make a great bar or wine cellar type spot.
I should mention that the question I get a lot on this is "Why do you need a bar? You don't even drink!" That's true, but for me it's really more of an 'a place for everything and everything in its place' issue. Also, I've always had this dream of having a soda fountain in my house. Dr. Pepper on tap! I talked about it for over a year and finally did something about it.
This is an ongoing project. It's taking a long time because I don't really have a start to finish plan. Every time we take a step we just reevaluate and come up with the next step. My mom weighed in on this in the beginning:
Mom - "I hope you know what you're doing."
Me - "I have no idea what I'm doing! I don't know what could have given you the impression that I did?"
One of the walls along the alleged void was in the garage so I got a bore-scope and drilled a hole. My first hole was useless. There wasn't enough light for the bore-scope to pick up anything even in night vision mode. I drilled a bigger hole and still couldn't really see anything so I taped a flashlight on the end of a rod and went in.
It was hard to see much, but basically my suspicions were confirmed - Unused space!
There was a recessed area in this particular garage that had a 10-foot wide workbench and I decided that I needed that space to make a large enough bar. I tore out the bench rather quickly.
The workbench was a nice touch, but the reality is we have lots of garages and garage space but no bar in our house. This extra 10 x 4 area made all the difference.
Next, I cut a hole in the wall big enough for me to fit through (barely) and went exploring.
The space was there. It was quirky, but I like quirky. The stairs came into play a little closer to the entrance than I thought but that should also be okay.
This is the curved wall that will be the entrance to the bar from our kitchen. Curved walls create some challenges but I wasn't deterred. The only things that I identified that would need to be rerouted were a few electrical lines and the fresh air vent for the fireplace.
The next step was to call my brother. If you want a problem solved and taken care of quickly, I'm your guy. If you want something done meticulously and right, you want my brother Michael. He is the "measure twice, cut once" guy. I had already demoed the wall that was coming out and it was still cool weather so we needed to get the new wall up before it got hot.
We decided that the space would be better if we had a couple more feet so we poured a pad to extend the bar out into the garage space a bit.
I keep a trailer around and it sure does come in handy every now and then.
We set the bolts for the base plate and let it cure over night.
The next day was framing day. We had materials. We had tools. We're not idiots (at least my brother isn't), so we just kind of figured it out.
After we finished framing up the walls, Michael, being the perfectionist that he is, smoothed out the concrete base...with the "help" of my daughter of course.
With the exposed walls it was time to run lines. Since I wanted a soda machine, I was going to need a water line. Sadly, there are no lines anywhere accessible to the bar project that we could get to so my plumber ran a line outside and through the wall.
Here's the water line in the bar. I would rather have run a line from the ceiling but there was no access to the attic above the garage.
It solved the problem but this area gets a lot of sun in the morning. I'm hoping it's not an issue. I went back and painted the line to match the brick later. It's still not pretty but it's a little less noticeable.
Next up was electric. I figure the electricians will have to come out 4 times during this project. This first trip was just to rough in the wiring and to add lights.
This is getting long so I'll cover the next bit of progress in the next post.
