Once we were settled in the rest of the house, we started looking at bar designs. We consulted with family and poured over photos on pinterest. We also checked out bars around the area. Tough job, I know! And then we found exactly what we were looking for. We wanted to change a few things about the design, but this was the general idea!
Based on that photo, Chad began taking measurements and started shopping. Here is how the room looked like at the beginning.
There was even a design book, complete with CAD drawings for every step through the building process. For those of you who know Chad, this should not be surprising!!
Chad started working on the bar in November, and built the frame. It took a few weekends, but it looked great.
Then it was time to finish off the service counter. We decided to go with a UMD theme, so I wanted to have a design based off of the Maryland flag. The flag is very colorful, and we did not to make the bar too busy, so we went with a gray scale version. During the weekend of NYE, Mee-maw and Grandpa were already up, visiting, so Grandpa helped draw out the design. I found it funny, how out of the four of us (Mee-maw is a CPA and Chad is an engineer), Grandpa and I were the ones who were doing math.
A few days later, I sat down and hand-painted the bar. And then I polyurethaned the heck out of it! We definitely wanted to keep it protected, especially since the rest of the bar had not been constructed yet. I am very happy with the way it turned out!
During a long weekend, in January, Grumpa and Grammy came up to help with the bar. I came down with a stomach bug, so Grammy was on "kid duty", while the guys got quite a bit of work done. Thank goodness for their help and extra hands!! By the end of that weekend, we had a good idea of what the bar would look like, and what we still had left to do.
Putting on the bar counter!
The back counter!
Front Paneling Coming Together!
Next step: Staining!!!! It took me nearly two weeks of working at night. We picked a nice hickory stain color and decided on at least two coats. It was amazing how good the bar looked once we got some color on it.
While I was staining and polyurethaning the bar, Chad was working on the upper cabinets for the back wall. And once he had those components built, I picked up my brush and stained those parts as well.
Once the stain was dry and the polyurethane was on the bar, Chad was able to put on our foot rail. It took some work to get the rail tight and right, but he figured it out and we love it.
Then it was time to install the back cabinets. Chad did a great job!!
The final product!!
We named the bar The King Charles, in honor of all of our family members with Charles in their names. Some good company there!! Our last step was hanging up the "King Charles" sign from Chad's grandfather's bar. We also included the Bar light from the old bar. What a special part to our bar and a great memory for Chad and his family.
We still need to unpack most of our bar gear, but we did manage to get some stuff put out. And we want to do a backsplash in the middle of the back cabinets, but we are still deciding what we want. And that is not going to stop us from enjoying the bar!! All in all, we are very happy with the way it turned out. We owe a big THANK YOU to our family, who came up and helped to make this bar exactly what we wanted.
Now we just need to open it up for some parties!!
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