Bar Project - Sticky's II gets a makeover!
For those of you that have spent quality time here at Sticky O'Huggy's II Billiard Karaoke Pub, you know there was always something missing. A bar. We have remedied that situation.
Around mid-December, Karrie and I started planning on having a bar downstairs. After a look at the bars that are for sale commercially (and being horrified by the prices), we thought it would be many years before we could have our own.
One night our friends Bobby and Mary were over watching a Skins game. We were looking online and found a ton of web sites that sell plans for building bars. The best one was "Speedy-Build Home Bar Plans on the Web". We were able to get a set of 10 plans relatively cheap. I narrowed it down to 3 that I thought would be best, and Karrie picked her favorite out of the 3.
Day One:
The first morning we started this endeavor, Tom and I met up at Home Depot. One of the cool things about the Speedy-Build plans is that it comes with a "cut list" so you know exactly how much you need of each piece of lumber. And there ended up being very little waste left over. It took about an hour to get it all together (including a propane heater for the garage - money well spent)
Then it was back to the house to get started. Tom and I spent about 8 hours making all the cuts and numbering the pieces.
Alex jumped in an helped for a while, too.
As did Karrie.
At the end of the day, we enjoyed a beer on the new bar.
Ok, it wasn't like sitting in a pub, but we earned it.
Day Two:
Tom came over and we got an early start on the assembly. It went pretty smooth. The only change we made was to make the "L" portion of the bar on the left instead of the right.
At this point, you are probably thinking "wow guys, that is really starting to take shape!" And you would be right. The shape it was taking was BIG. We didn't realize how big until we tried to carry it down into the basement to continue the build. After taking the "L" section almost completely apart, we got it inside. Putting it back together wasn't that hard, but we said several bad words about our lack of foresight on that one.
Tom did an awesome job cutting the joint for the bar top.
The handrail is actually 3 pieces of wood. One big piece and a quarter-round on either side. It matched up nicely and feels like one piece.
We got our second wind when it was all starting to come together. When we finished building, we had been working for 16 hours straight.
Sleep came quick and hard that night.
Day Three:
Day three was actually several nights after work. It was a lot of sanding.
Then it was time to apply the stain. We went with cherry wood.
The stain REALLY brought out the details in the wood nicely.
We did a couple coats of stain and then applied urethane. This was over the course of several nights.
One mistake I made was getting "satin" urethane. It would look shiny when applied, but when it dried it was relatively flat. A quick trip to Home Depot fixed that. I got a can of "gloss". Now it looks very, very shiny.
Then I added accent lights and mounted them under the bar top. Total cost for that: 50 cents. It is a string of clear Christmas lights from Rite-Aid, marked down after the holidays.
Day Four:
Wetricked Tom into coming over invited Tom over again. We moved the bar to where it was going to remain. Then we mounted the television, cable box and DVD player over the bar. We cut BIG holes in the wall so that we could have the karaoke speakers flush against the wall. It really opened up a lot more space. We built the bar stools that Karrie found on Overstock.com. (awesome deal, too). And we built a platform for the slot machine to sit on.
And then, we broke the bar in!
It was a very fun project. We could have bought a bar from a store, but not only would it have cost much, much more, we wouldn't have this great sense of self satisfaction that we have now. A job well done!
We are having a "Fill The Bar" party in February. See you there!
Stay tuned............
Around mid-December, Karrie and I started planning on having a bar downstairs. After a look at the bars that are for sale commercially (and being horrified by the prices), we thought it would be many years before we could have our own.
One night our friends Bobby and Mary were over watching a Skins game. We were looking online and found a ton of web sites that sell plans for building bars. The best one was "Speedy-Build Home Bar Plans on the Web". We were able to get a set of 10 plans relatively cheap. I narrowed it down to 3 that I thought would be best, and Karrie picked her favorite out of the 3.
Day One:
The first morning we started this endeavor, Tom and I met up at Home Depot. One of the cool things about the Speedy-Build plans is that it comes with a "cut list" so you know exactly how much you need of each piece of lumber. And there ended up being very little waste left over. It took about an hour to get it all together (including a propane heater for the garage - money well spent)
Then it was back to the house to get started. Tom and I spent about 8 hours making all the cuts and numbering the pieces.
Alex jumped in an helped for a while, too.
As did Karrie.
At the end of the day, we enjoyed a beer on the new bar.
Ok, it wasn't like sitting in a pub, but we earned it.
Day Two:
Tom came over and we got an early start on the assembly. It went pretty smooth. The only change we made was to make the "L" portion of the bar on the left instead of the right.
At this point, you are probably thinking "wow guys, that is really starting to take shape!" And you would be right. The shape it was taking was BIG. We didn't realize how big until we tried to carry it down into the basement to continue the build. After taking the "L" section almost completely apart, we got it inside. Putting it back together wasn't that hard, but we said several bad words about our lack of foresight on that one.
Tom did an awesome job cutting the joint for the bar top.
The handrail is actually 3 pieces of wood. One big piece and a quarter-round on either side. It matched up nicely and feels like one piece.
We got our second wind when it was all starting to come together. When we finished building, we had been working for 16 hours straight.
Sleep came quick and hard that night.
Day Three:
Day three was actually several nights after work. It was a lot of sanding.
The stain REALLY brought out the details in the wood nicely.
We did a couple coats of stain and then applied urethane. This was over the course of several nights.
One mistake I made was getting "satin" urethane. It would look shiny when applied, but when it dried it was relatively flat. A quick trip to Home Depot fixed that. I got a can of "gloss". Now it looks very, very shiny.
Then I added accent lights and mounted them under the bar top. Total cost for that: 50 cents. It is a string of clear Christmas lights from Rite-Aid, marked down after the holidays.
Day Four:
We
And then, we broke the bar in!
It was a very fun project. We could have bought a bar from a store, but not only would it have cost much, much more, we wouldn't have this great sense of self satisfaction that we have now. A job well done!
We are having a "Fill The Bar" party in February. See you there!
Stay tuned............
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