The Wet Bar Finale

My Mother (hi Mom!) kindly informed me this weekend that I'm really dragging out this Wet Bar thing.  She has a good point, so let's finish up this thing already- shall we?  If you remember we've turned this empty space:

To this:

And after a little plumbing and install, we have this:

 

Let's start with this beauty of a faucet.   We found it on Amazon with great reviews, and it had just what we were looking for; minimal profile, single handle and brushed nickle finish like the sink.  Bonus: the water flows out of it in this cool rectangular shape.

The process was pretty easy.  After three bathroom remodels doing it wrong, I finally learned my lesson this time around and installed the faucet before I installed the sink so that I had plenty of room to work underneath.  Once the faucet was in and secure, I dropped in the sink and attached it with the handy little clips that Ikea provides.  Then I just needed to install the drain and trap plumbing.

 

See that black line coming in on the right of the drain pipe?  That my friends is our handy little beer drain line, for this guy:

The tower for the tap line actually came with our keg fridge, so we just removed it and attached it to the counter top. For the drain we found this pretty guy on Amazon. 

In the past our keg fridge just had a plastic tray that sat on top to catch any spills, and unless you removed it & washed it each time it was used, it got pretty disgusting.  So springing for a version that could drain directly into the plumbing line (via a dishwasher pipe and hose) was totally worth it for me.   You can see below that the beverage cooler we purchased is just low enough to allow for this drain tube to connect under the counter and run into the adjacent cabinet.

 I plan to cut and paint a trim board to cover up this small gap above the fridge, but apparently I was already dragging this out, so I'll just have to show you that update later.  Added bonus of the beer tap drain: it doubles as a drying rack when not in use.

You may recall that we decided to store the actual keg fridge in the Cat Closet right next to the bar, since it was huge and had seen better days.  Forgive the mess of storage behind it, I promise that these items are placed at least a foot away from the fridge to give it adequate ventilation, it just looks like more of a cluster in this photo.

We insulated a longer line with plumbing insulation from Home Depot and ran it out of the hole in the top.  I know the top of the fridge is gross, sorry.  As I said, it's seen better days.

See how it runs across the bottom on the sink cabinet on the way to the tap?

Once everything was installed we added a few things to the cabinet to make the most of the space.  A bag for recycling and a trash can right down here keeps the mess to a minimum, and the organizer on the door holds a dishwashing wand and a bottle brush to clean wine glasses.

And that is (finally!) the story of how we took a blank and useless space and turned it into a 4'x4' square of function and style, not to mention yummy goodness. 

We've got a little decor and accessories work to do, not to mention the big Family Room reveal, but for now I'm just enjoying this fully functional space.  Anyone else adding function to a previously dead area of their home?  Doing a little minor plumbing work?  Classing things up with a keg in your basement?