Let's Build A Bar - Part 3

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.