Pour Me Another

Pour Me Another

aka flip a dresser to a bar

I have what my husband calls a nasty habit of bringing projects home that I can't seem to manage on my own. Once upon a time, I worked at Home Depot and I swear to you, that was his biggest nightmare. 

A close friend of ours had decided that he wanted to become a bartender, so he started going to bar tending school. While he was in this program, I said to husband, "Wouldn't it be so cool to make him a bar for his graduation/birthday gift this year?" And so begins the tale. 

This was my first piece. In my wonderful state, there is a small town by the name of Coburg. Every year, the second Sunday of the month of September, they have an event called Coburg Days. It's essentially a giant antique market that takes over their entire downtown area. I picked up this beauty for a whole $5 at the end of the day. I was so excited and my husband was excited about the price. 

Story of my life, I never take enough pictures of ANYTHING I'm working on. I did manage to get the below picture as we were stripping the layers and layers of grim and stain off the top of this thing. 

Flash forward two trips to our local Habitat for Humanity, a quick trip to Ikea and an annoyingly long trip to Home Depot as we tried to figure out what hardware to use to hang the doors and tada! A finished bar fit for a bartender. One of my favorite features about this bar, that we used the original door fronts as our shelf base. We just couldn't bare to see them go to waste. 

Jump ahead two years. We've moved, got more room, life is great. Husband's cousin has been in love with our bar concept since I showed her the picture. She's getting married. Been hinting for months that a bar for their living room is EXACTLY what they need for a wedding gift. So it begins again. 

I spend weeks trying to find the perfect base for my bar and finally come across this at a yard sale for $15. Not as great of a deal as first time, but this one has been bones, more stable. I barely managed a before picture before we started. As you can see, I'd already pulled the drawers out and was in the process of ripping them apart. 

After the first bar, I knew everything I wanted to do differently this time. This dresser still had the back on it. I wrapped it with drawer paper from Target's Dollar Spot. The base was leftover plywood we had in the garage. The shelves, once again are re-purposed drawer fronts. The glass hangers really gave us trouble. We picked up some small wood pieces from Lowes and with a lot of frustration and a power screwdriver to the finger, got them attached. We liked the tone of the wood the dresser originally was, so just a coat of polyurethane went on the drawer shelves and the top. She was so happy and tells us this bar is perfect for their small living room. 

The best part about these kind of projects is that there is no right or wrong way to achieve the desired end result. Sometimes what you envisioned won't work, but that's okay. With a few adjustments and a bit of flexibility, the result could be better then you ever imagined. Just don't be afraid to try.