Project Winebar

With limited space in an apartment, picking out the right furniture can become a challenge. Utilize without clutter is my motto - however it is easier said than done. Over the years we acquire more stuff that we of course never want to throw out. For example, Jay and I had been saving this plain wooden wine rack from his bachelor pad in the city. We dragged it along with us to Buffalo and two and a half years later, brought it back to Jersey. And it sat like an eyesore in the corner nook of our family room/dining room duo for over five months. It was time to swallow our hoarding pride and purchase some sort of bar.

We looked online everywhere and practically wanted to cry when we saw how much it would cost us. All we needed was something tall and narrow to fit in the limited corner space. We found a great deal on Overstock.com for the below wine bar - it met all our dimension standards and only ran us up $250.

Normally I am a huge advocate in the online shopping world, but after this experience I will probably never buy from Overstock again. We were surprisingly disappointed when the first attempt came in damaged. Wood was chipped off in several places that we would not be able to hide after assembling (which I wasn't looking forward to either). It looked cheap and there was no way we were keeping it in this state. We asked for a new one to be shipped. Again, to my dismay the second one also came in wrecked. We gave up on Overstock and ended up throwing them both out - with full refund thankfully. The search continued.

Realizing that maybe we need to pay more for higher quality, we invested in a Pottery Barn catalog. I fell in love with this piece, but it would cost over $500. That amount of money was double our budget and we began to wonder what our alternatives could be. Then the light bulb went off - what if we made one?

We drafted up a sketch of the ideal bar, which became a combination of the Overstock Wreck and the Pricey Pottery Barn pieces. Jay assured me that he could do it (with the help of my Dad's tools), and we were well on our way to The Home Depot. 

After all was said and done, the wood, crown molding (for the aesthetic appeal), stain, brushes, and sandpaper cost us a grand total of $200. It took us several weeks to make since we really only had spare time on the weekends. And this was not a one person job (considering I was only of use during the staining). I have to thank my dad for taking the time and effort in collaboration with Jay - he could not have built this in under a month on his own. 

We were even able to salvage the plain wine grid from the beginning of the story. After giving it a few coats of stain, all we had to do was slide it in the bottom, and that third of the bar became our shelving for bottles.

Here's how it looked in the beginning, the middle, and finally the finished product. Jay could not be prouder of his work and we realized that with a little time, patience, and drive, we could make exactly what we wanted.