Furniture Makeover: The Bar

When it came time to move we started planning what furniture we would keep and what we would toss, since we would be merging all of our things. One of the pieces we knew we didn't want to get rid of was an old, and rather large, china hutch Joe has had for ages. So we decided with a little imagination it would our new bar! Every house needs a good bar, right?
While a few finishing touches are needed we just couldn't wait to share how excited we are about it.

First of all, sorry about this picture, I didn't realize until I sat down to put this together that I had forgotten in the chaos of the move to take a before picture. I did find it in the background of a picture taken during the making of our Wine Cork Table (link) so voila!

First we took apart the whole unit and removed the doors, then it was time to sand.

and sand some more.

Once we had taken off the doors on the top portion of the bar we removed the chicken wire looking front.

After all the sanding was done it took 6 cans of BIN to prime both the top and bottom portions of the bar. After priming I used my beloved paint sprayer and some high gloss white paint to finish it off.

Initially when we start this makeover we planned on picking new hardware, but plans changed when we realized there is no longer hardware made that would fit the existing holes on the drawers and doors. We didn't want to put more wholes in or ruin the existing look and lines of such a cool piece of furniture so I thought I'd try using some left over chrome spray paint and see what it looked like.

Because of the amazing detail in all the pulls and handles the chrome turned out to be a perfect option, we both actually gasped as we painted it, because it looked THAT much better.

Pretty amazing.

Another.. because I'm obsessed.

Once everything had dried we started moving it in, and putting it back together.

We decided to mount the top portion instead of stacking it like it was before so we would have a space to make drinks on.

After securing the top to the wall we glued mirror panels to the outter sections. 

Next, we bought some inexpensive corbels at home depot and painted them to match, 

we wanted to go for a custom wall unit look instead of two separate pieces.

In this picture from our Bar Serving Tray Project post you can see one of the corbels after it was hung, we left just enough space to make delicious cocktails :)

We're still finishing up the doors but in the mean time, why not start stocking! 

(PS Totally in love with the 'BAR' sign - post coming soon!)

Project: Bar Serving Tray

When we finished our, in my opinion, gorgeous Kitchen Backsplash, we had some left over tiles I wasn't sure what to do with. We also had a sheet of tiles we decided not to use at all, and I couldn't bring my self to throw them away. I knew I wanted to keep one of each tile to turn into ornaments for our Christmas tree, a little momento from our renovation (I'll share how that turns out soon!) but wasn't sure what to do with the rest.

 Finally I came up with an idea to make a tray for our snazzy New Bar. This project was pretty easy, with the exception of finding out that the tiles were two different thicknesses (my very crafty better half came up with a solution - yay!) I'm kind of loving how it turned out.

We found this 'interesting' tray at Homegoods for $14, score! Don't worry the bench it's all sitting on is a project that's definitely on my list.

I picked a gray for the paint color (shocking).

After two coats of the gloss gray spray paint it's looking like new!

Just tiling away..

As I said before I realized as I sat down to start this project that the tiles were actually two different thicknesses. This is a major downer when your making a tray to carry drinks on - spillage. But my genius better half came up with the idea to cut up some coasters we had lying around and glue those to the backs of the thinner tiles, making them all exactly the same surface height!

The tiles have all been glued and it's time to let it dry.

Once the glue has dried, we set up the grouting station. (I also like this picture because it makes our DIY bar stools look pretty snazzy)

We used pre-mixed white grout - leftover from our kitchen backsplash tile (link coming soon).

Me.. getting my grout on...

Making sure to get in all the corners!

It's all grouted and ready wiped off with a damp sponge.

Once it's been cleaned with a sponge and some tile cleaner, viola!

Ready for our first cocktail party!