basement bar

It's been a LONG time since my last post. If there's anyone out there reading this blog, I apologize. So what could I have possibly been doing these last 5 months? Getting stuff ready for the wedding. And building a bar in the basement. We knew we wanted a bar room in the basement since move-in day. But how we'd get to that point wasn't clear. After months of keeping an eye out for the perfect bar for our space in the basement, I came to the conclusion that the best option was to just build my own. So the research began. If anyone out there is attempting the same, I highly recommend using SolidWorks, AutoCAD, or something similar to layout your design before jumping forward to the building phase. I used SolidWorks and the project went almost completely without hitch (and therefore almost completely without curse words flying from the basement).

Once it was planned and drawn up I bought the frame work and cut it down to size and began screwing everything together.

I knew we had the room for an 8' bar, so I decided to start with that for the bar top width and basically worked my way down from there. The kegerator was my grandfathers and recently passed down to me in hopes to get more use out of it. It doesn't work at this point, but we're hoping it's fixable to avoid buying a new one. Once I had the frame work finished I added a junction box for an outlet inside the bar and planned the wire run so I wouldn't hit any snags when covering it all up with plywood.

Next came the plywood. I used birch plywood you can find at most any hardware store. Again the CAD model helped immensely, as I just had to check the drawing and cut each peace to size, then screw it on.

I used 1/2" thick plywood everywhere except in the places where the plywood acted as a support for anything else (side walls for shelving, bottom shelf, bar and counter-tops), in which case I used 3/4" thick plywood. The bar-top and counter-top are double-layered (screwed and glued together) for a total thickness of 1.5".

Next came the foot-rail. I went with the cheapest method I could think of and used gas pipe from the hardware store and spray painted it gloss black. I made shelving on the back wall from the same material. You can find tutorials on this piping for shelving ALL over the interwebs.

Next, came the iron-on veneer edging and arm rest moulding. Nothing to tricky there.

I decided to go with glass shelving for the inside of the bar. Why? This thing is built into this basement, so I wanted to make it nice enough that people hoping to buy the house down the road want to keep the bar. Plus, since I'm going to add lighting to the inside, there won't be a need to put a light in each shelf.

At that point, all that was left was to stain it (two coats Walnut stain), and polyurethane (two coats everywhere except the bar top and counter top, which each got four coats).

I also made some swag lights for above the bar. Simple project of buying a decorative cord, plug, and a few Edison-style bulbs.