#151- The Wine Bar- Part 2

As I write this I'm trying to pretend that there isn't 6 inches of snow falling on April 18th.  This winter has been SO LONG, and I'm at my breaking points folks. I'd have lost my mind entirely by now if it wasn't for this little gem to keep me warm.

 

Last week I shared with you all the progress we were making on our big 80 golden oak china cabinet turned wine bar.  This week it's time to tackle that big, ugly hole we left in the middle.

I wanted to create a wine rack in this space, but not just any wine rack.  I could have used lattice, an X pattern, wooden dowels or all sorts of different, easier ways, but I had my mind set on something much more streamlined, modern and masculine.  Apparently I like to make things difficult for myself like that. I wanted something that felt strong and intentional, and not at all fancy like this china hutch of the past.  This piece from Room and Board was my inspiration.

Source: roomandboard.com via Erin on Pinterest

The problem was figuring out how exactly to build the structured wood cubes all in a straight line.  The Hubs often jokes that I have no idea how to stop my brain from spinning, and in this case he was right.  I spent weeks laying in bed, trying to sleep at night figuring out how to build these cubes step by step. There was also a whole lot of math trying to figure out the perfect dimensions for the cubes that would fit the existing space.  Some people count sheep- I plan a project. 

I decided to use the wood I had removed from the built ins- remember I said I had a plan for all of this?

Call me cheap, but it just seemed like such a waste to throw all of that wood away.  Sure, it was a little more work, but something about just tossing all this wood in a dumpster, and then paying for new wood that had to be grown, harvested, milled and shipped seemed so wasteful.  So the Hubs laughed at me for dumpster diving in our own dumpster, and I started by pulling out nails.  A lot of nails.

About 3 nap times later I had finally prepped and cut all the pieces I needed.

I started by building a box that would fit perfectly inside our opening.

  Before building anything else I tested it in the space to make sure it was a perfect fit. Money.

Then I lined up all my horizontal shelving pieces end to end and marked exactly where all my vertical pieces would go, so that I knew they would line up exactly.

I used wood glue and my trusty nail gun to fire vertical pieces into each horizontal shelf, but didn't put them together as one big piece just yet.

 Keeping each row of shelves separate allowed me the room to patch all the holes and sand the pieces smooth.  One of my favorite tips when creating a piece you plan to paint is to use wall patch instead of wood putty to fill any holes or irregularities.  It goes on much easier and sands down to the same even finish.  Which was helpful as I had a lot of holes in this old, used wood.

Once they were all painted and sanded, I could prime each shelf.  See what I mean about building this in the right order?  With the shelves still separate I could easily paint every little crack and cranny.  I used a combination of a brush and a microfiber roller again. I have a serious crush on microfiber rollers.

 

And after primer I could apply 3 coats of my charcoal gray paint.

After a few days of solid curing time, I finally put all the pieces together.  I started by sliding the first shelf in on the bottom, and attaching it securely to my frame on the sides with screws.  Then I just stacked each piece on top of the other. After attaching all nine shelves, we picked up the whole piece and slid it into our big, ugly hole.  There was a tiny gap on each side so I tacked in a couple of trim pieces to make it look seamless.

And here my friends is my 54 bottle, magic wine display.  

Let me hit you with a little before and after. 

Before:

and After:

What do you guys think?  Upgrade?  Maybe I've been drinking too much wine, but I love how this feels like it fits and looks intentional, instead of that strange, "Why's there a china hutch in your Living Room?" feel.   The only issue is that we're going to have to buy a lot more wine, and that's a problem that I can handle.  Happy Friday everyone!