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!
The Tree Had to Go
At the start of our Christmas display set-up we had planned to string long sections of lights all the way down our 40′ spruce tree out front, thus creating the ultimate mega-tree. As fate would have it, we could not make that happen without renting a bucket truck twice a year just to reach the top. Since that would run us about $700 annually, we opted not to use the tree in our display. After this setback we started throwing around the idea of removing the tree all together and using that side of the yard for a more elaborate display next year. Well, there is a guy that comes into the Caribou Coffee I work at every day for his morning coffee and he happens to own his own landscaping company so, I asked for a quote. It was a fair price for removing such a large tree so we decided to go ahead and have it cut down. It turned out that the day that worked for him was Marc’s birthday. Not the best present I could have gotten for him, but it was big and expensive (that makes it good, right?). It took him around 4 hours to cut the whole thing down and he had to use 5 different chainsaws to get the job done. Pretty impressive to watch plus, he did all that without damaging our Christmas display! I have below some before, during, and after pictures of the process. It happened to snow the day after it came down, so that was marvelous timing.
Yard with the tree
Tree with all branches removed
Yard with no giant tree covering the house
I also managed to get a video of the large trunk being taken down. He had planned to have it fall on to the grassy area on the boulevard where he had some large logs waiting to cushion the fall. It didn’t quite work out that way though and he missed the logs by only a few inches. The grass was mostly unharmed though.
So now we have much more space for expansion next year. Plus, you can actually see our house when you drive down the block! In my opinion, it all makes the yard seem much larger now that there isn’t a giant tree covering everything.
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…)
Finishing the Porch
The floor before painting
More of the floor before
So you may remember that last summer I had started the project of refinishing the porch floor. That didn’t get much further then removing some paint last summer. So we worked hard to get it ready for this summer’s enjoyment beginning in the spring. End of April or beginning of May (somewhere around there) we finished removing the paint from the floor and filled in some holes that had formed near the door. Then we painted the whole floor with a good porch floor paint. Just that made a world of difference to the feel of the space. But we had many more plans. (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.
New Rug
I had been looking for a nice area rug for the living room, especially going into winter, so that we could have a little oasis of carpet. I LOVE hardwood floors but sometimes the comfort of carpet is nice as well. I would like to have a huge, luxorious rug like this beauty from World Of Rugs. However, I don’t have an unlimited budget for rugs, so I went for a much cheaper but less beautiful rug I got from Menards for $40. HA! You thought it was going to be from IKEA, didn’t you? It was actually a set of 3 rugs for $40 (approx. dimensions 5′ x 7′, 1.5′ x 5′, and 1.5′ x 2.6′). It’s a very good deal for some basic floor coverings but they are lacking something in the fuzziness factor. You get what you pay for, as usual. I still haven’t decided what to do with the 2 smaller rugs yet. I think one might go near the front door.
Rug, view 1
Rug, view 2
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.