The Liquor Expansion
Bar area before new cabinets
Cabinets assembled
Finished and stocked
Bar area afterwards
So my bar area (previously shown here) had become a bit crowded. In fact, some of the lesser used bottles had been relegated to the floor. So it was decided that we should do something to make that look more presentable. It has long been a dream of mine to have a classy display cabinet for my increasing collection of top shelf spirits. Thus another trek to the almighty IKEA was made and several Billy bookcases with glass doors were purchased. Ideally, there would have been a corner one but someone (may or may not have been me) failed to properly measure for it. It took many hours for Marc to assemble, level and anchor them in position. It became very apparent how uneven our floors are being as he had to shim each and every one of them to stop them from rocking back and forth. However, it looks amazing and I am in love with the feel it adds to the dining room. The down side may be that now I have more storage space so I will be more compelled to purchase further fine scotches and whiskeys to fill the space. I won’t say how long my wishlist of liquors is, only that it would surprise most of you.
My glass shelves above the bar area are now dedicated to glassware storage, including my recent addition of Riedel Single Malt Whiskey glasses for proper whiskey tastings. Also, my wine and scotch journals now have a special place on a shelf in the smaller cabinet instead of being wedged by some martini shakers in a corner.
There will be a future update on this project regarding lighting. Marc is working on adding in programming LED lights to each shelf. This would allow us to have the cabinets fade between a rainbow of colors for added ambiance. They will them turn to a white light when the doors open so one can better see the bottles.
A little bit obsessive — yes. But I don’t know any other way to do it!
Love the Vertical Storage
As an addition to our bar area we added some floating glass shelves to store our bar-ware (glasses, martini shakers, jiggers, etc). We didn’t really know what to store on the top shelf, so it holds the wine I have yet to have occasion to drink. I really like the visual appeal this added to the dining room. It really finished that space nicely. Shelves were from IKEA (no surprise there).
Shelves for the Kitchen Cabinets…Finally
So, you may remember shortly after we got the house that I used some small tables from IKEA as make-shift shelves in my kitchen cabinets (read here Kitchen Modification). Well, I had finally grown tired of that solution. So, I made yet another trek to Home Depot to find some suitable shelves. It took me over an hour to find any laminated or finished boards that would fit the space. Even then, I would still need to do some cutting to get them to fit but, who doesn’t love some quality time with a circular saw. So after a few cuts I went from a mess to some decent looking cabinets. (more…)
Giving an Old Dresser Some Love
Dresser Before
Last fall I got an old dresser from a good friend of ours. She didn’t want it anymore and I fell in love the moment I saw it. So we moved it on over to our place. It wasn’t in the greatest condition when she gave it to me. The paint was chipped and scratched and it needed some serious love. But for a long time it just sat in our dining room waiting for me to get around to it. In the “before” picture there is one drawer that I had painted. Silly me, I forgot to take a picture before I started.
More Stylish Clothing Storage
Note stack of plastic drawers on the left
New clothing storage
As you can see in the picture we had, next to our nice IKEA wardrobe, a large stack of plastic drawers. They had been hiding in a closet when we lived in the apartment. But now that they were out in the open we were constantly wincing when looking at them. It was not a good look and one of them was falling apart. So we began a search for a more pleasant looking replacement. We ended up getting a bookcase from IKEA (yes, IKEA….again) that was designed to have drawer like inserts that came in many styles and colors. It was a unique route to go with this but it fit the space perfectly. So we got 5 teal colored drawers that are covered in a suede like material. The bookcase is actually a much smaller version of the huge bookcase we added to the living room (seen here). All in all, I think we paid $85 for our new clothing organizer.
Sorry for the bad picture of the new clothing organizer. The Sun was not being helpful.
Kitchen Modification
Chaos of our kitchen cabinets
Our kitchen base cabinets did not have any shelves in them when we bought the place. Which is a bit puzzling and basically meant that we just piled stuff in there as best we could because there was no good way to organize it (see picture). I didn’t really feel like making custom shelves for them at this point in time so, we prowled IKEA for something that would work for now. I had basically come up dry but then while wandering through the warehouse area on the way out, I came across what they called a “night stand” on super clearance for about $3. It was a small glass topped table that would fit nicely in the cabinets. Not a perfect fix, but at $3 a piece I was willing to give it a go.