The Project Blog

… are you green with it?

I went last week and picked up enough ceiling supplies to get the bar room grid up.  Rather than mess around trying to cut in around the edges when I painted the room, I decided to go ahead and paint first.  I’d rather touch up dings than cut in clean around the whole room!

If you can remember back to this post, my sketchup plans had green walls in the bar.  The wifey and I stopped in Lowe’s and picked a couple of chips and had them make up the little tiny sample cans.  I threw a block on each wall and we opted for the lighter one (Chesterwood French Green.)  When I went back to Lowes, I grabbed only a gallon figuring as soon as I bought two, I’d only need one, and knowing that I was only buying one so I’d need two……. Now if I could just do that with lottery numbers!  Sure enough, I used a heavy nap roller and made it to the last 1.5 SMALL walls and the can was empty.  Fair enough, 2nd gallon bought, finished up, hit the other walls with a light 2nd coat, done.

Next up, ceiling grid!  Here’s pics of the paint to tide you over.

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Just a quickie update.

Spent most of the ‘basement time’ today not in the basement.  I fired up google sketchup and laid out the grids for the drop ceiling so I could build a materials list and price estimate.  Once the wife revived me from the sticker shock I found a couple of different options so I wasn’t using the pricey matte black tiles in the bar and game room too.  However I’ll still be using a different style in each room I think.  Probably a tan/beige vinyl thermoform plastic in the bar and a more standard commercial looking fiber tile in the game room as I assume it’ll see it’s fair share of stray pingpong balls, darts, buckshot, etc.

Once that tab of the spreadsheet was filled out, I went down and sanded and stained  the whole bar top.  Once it dries I’ll tuck it away until the ceiling is in and the walls are painted, then it’ll get put in place and glossed up.

Here’s pics of the dark goodness…

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… it is not, but it’s close enough to put a grin on my face.

Spent a good bit of time working on the bar this weekend.  Parts of 3.5 days equals all the back and side cabinets are stained waiting a coat of poly.  Also, all three legs of the bar top are cut and glued!

The plan to get the middle leg of the bar to fit worked out really well.  I worked on the end sections first, got them cut and glued and dried to act as their own templates.  I then set them on top of the rough middle section with scrap along both lengths to get them level.  At that point it was simple as scribe and cut!  Lining up the miter blade for 16 precision unique cuts was a pain, and in hindsight I should have done the same thing as I did on the ends which was glue 2-3 rows together so I only had 3-4 ‘rows’ to cut instead of 8, but oh well.  In the end I have only one annoying gap but it wasn’t enough to make me want to redo that board.  It’s not any worse than some hardwood floors I’ve seen.

The cabinets stained up rather well, though I’m a little irked at the trees they apparently used from opposite ends of the planet because a couple of edge pieces on doors and a couple of drawer fronts just stick out compared to their neighbors, perhaps with better room lighting it’ll smooth the differences out if a 2nd coat doesnt help.

Oh, and while Harbor Freight clamps are economical, they blow ass.  They do have a lifetime warranty, which I’ve used on one, but said replacement broke the first time I pulled the trigger tonight.  A couple others wont really hold very tight either.  I also broke the handle on my miter saw from there, but that probably had something to do with me knocking it off the workbench slap onto it’s head.

Here’s the visual aid section:

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With a 3 day weekend off work, I needed a haircut and to take care of some new fish I ordered online that fedex dropped off mid-morning in 20 deg weather.  So I called it a day at lunch and took care of business.  Beings that only lasted me about 2 hours, I took advantage of the time for some basement tinkering.

Prepping for assembling the bar tops I glued together the rows in strips of two or 3 for the long and short ends.  Not working on the middle leg just yet as I plan to get the ends done and cut, then I’ll sit them on top of the middle section to line up all the joints for marking and cutting.

After swapping out pieces of wood for less warps and cleaner joints and getting wood glue all over my fingers I decided I needed to sample the stain I bought last week.  I grabbed a scrap piece of flooring, the scrap from the filler piece I put between the back and side wall cabinets, and a rag.  I was pretty happy with the match to the vinyl ‘cheat sheets’ I used on the front, and just love the overall coloring the stain gives the Oak.  Comparison pics below.

While grabbing the glue at lowes I wandered over to the glass isle.  They can get special order frosted and colored lexan.  I asked the guy if they had actual samples on hand to look at and he said no, he also said that most of them are just clear lexan with a tint backing… bummer.  But, now I think what I’ll do for the light boxes is order up some true milk white plastic and back it with tint.

Speaking of tint, below are pics of the samples I ordered.  There is a translucent and an opaque.  I think translucent will be the way to go as the colors are a lot richer.  I just wish it came in a green/tan instead of blue/tan… I shall flex my google-fu and find what I’m looking for I’m sure.

As they say, pics or it didnt happen!

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I was bored today and spent some time on the internet looking for tips on seaming formica, etc.  I didn’t find anything super informative and started to talk myself into the fact that the end product would look horrible.

I googled around for images of wood bar tops and came across some ideas that made me go ‘ooo’.  One idea in particular was where people used simple wood flooring planks.  Most stained and poly’d them, one used a thick pour on gloss called Envirotex.  Sold!

So I trotted off to The MadHammers Opium Emporium (Lowe’s) and hit the stain section with a sample of the vinyl I used on the front of the bar.  I found a stain that would bring the oak cabinets pretty darn close to the tone.  Mission #1 completed.

Then I went back to the flooring section and was met with frustration.  This is because the only samples that matched the tone close enough in an Oak wood grain was the cheap ‘printed’ MDF type flooring.  Some of the hardwood samples came close, but were just not quite right, and they approached $100 for between 19 and 24 sq ft, meaning I was going to have to buy two boxes to have enough to cover 22-25 sqft of the main bar top.

I had a light bulb go off.  “Get unfinished and stain it to match you fool!”  Thankfully no one else was in the isle, cause I think I said it out loud.  I found one of the employees and asked if they carry unfinished flooring.  “At the other store across town” they said.

So across town I go, and straight to flooring.  I look… and look… and look… Nothing.  I ask an employee and he said “Yes, we hide it!”

He took me over 3-4 isles away from the main flooring area and there it was on an end cap, nicely stacked and bundled unfinished flooring and as luck would have it, OAK!  $50 a bundle, he had to go check the sq footage.  “19 sq ft” he said.  “Damnit!” I said and picked up two bundles.

I took one downstairs and got the long and middle legs laid out.  I”ll have a good bit left over but that’s fine because I can rip the tongues and grooves off them and use it on the rim of the whole bar.

I think I’m back to tile for the lower portion of the bar as I don’t want oak tops on top of oak cabinets.

Pics of the dry layout.  Here’s hoping I can pull off some descent cuts and get all three sections to meet up perfectly!

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OK, so there’s no screen to see, but I am throwing some light around testing bar ideas!

Spent a couple of hours down in the basement today.  I put on some more of the wood accents, got rid of all the empty slate boxes that were piled up in the corner of the bar, swept the floor, and cleaned up the crap collecting on the bar, and brainstormed.

First up was the wood accents.  The one I’d put up as a test was starting to pull away from the wood.  Apparently the peel and stick ’tile’ is more effective when it’s used on a highly clean (and probably treated) surface instead of the wood I’m slapping it onto.  I put a little bit of the adhesive I’ve been using on the slate on them for extra grab, here’s hoping it works better.

While I was doing the stick-em-up game, a couple of pieces of slate popped off the bar, and I was not amused.  It was then that I realized the rookie mistake when dealing with slate.  I was mindful enough to dust off the backs before gluing them up, but it would seem more wise to WASH the backs off so the adhesive isn’t sticking to a layer of dust.

I went around and tugged on pretty much all of the tiles, no others came off.  I’m sure they’ll all hold tight… until there’s a room full of people bumping up against them all.  Perhaps I should get an “In Case of Emergency” case with a caulk gun in it ready to go…

At that point it was getting on my nerves to see all the clutter around the room, so I did some cleanup.  While cleaning I had the thought for a mockup of the light boxes.  I went and dug up the two rope lights that were used on the porch pillars for Christmas and routed them in W patterns in a couple of the light boxes.  Then I took some leftover vapor barrier folded over 4 times or so to give a good milky opaque effect and tucked it up in front of the boxes.  While what we end up using will have some color to it like a stained glass, my goal was to see if one would be able to see the light bulbs from the source in the boxes.  Much to my dismay, you can.

Not sure if I want to stick with this idea or try other options.  The brightness is pretty much what I want.  I could paint the insides of the boxes white for reflectivity and build a lip on the front edges and put the rope behind it but I think the centers will be dim.  I could leave the plastic in there to help difuse the light more and put the tinted lexan up and run with it.  It’s just going to take some tinkering I think.

Let the pics speak!

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… New years eve party 201x should be fun in the bar

Yet another long week off between Christmas and New Years but beings I had to entertain the kids I really didn’t a whole lot of basement time in until today. I managed to put in a solid days work, well, after I rolled out of bed at like 10:00, thanks wifey!

I filled in the gap between the cabinets where they meet in the corner with a matching piece of oak.  I finished all of the tile on the front of the bar except for the angle cuts needed on one of the bends.  I also threw down the remaining section of counter top base for the back.

Then it was off to Lowe’s for some meditation in the tile and counter top isles with a side trip to the wood section.  We’re having a hard time finding something we like that’s not $10/sqft back splash mosaics for the counter tops (I’ve calculated roughly 70sqft of counter space to cover!)  I think we’ve eliminated using any variation of slate as it’ll take away from the front of the bar.  Glass tile is out of the question price wise, as well as aesthetically it just will not go with wood/slate.

I picked up a couple 4 sqft sections of 1/4 oak ply to rip down to fill in the gaps on the front of the bar (more on this later) as well as the exposed end then headed over to tile/flooring.  This time I not only hit the tile isles though, I also looked at the wood flooring section, then into no-mans land, linoleum… for an epiphany.

Beings this is a basement level floor and the fact that we’ve had more than our fair share of washing machine issues, HVAC condensate line leaks and kids splashing in the tub upstairs, all of which makes it’s way to the basement; hardwood and carpet are out of the question.  I’m not thrilled with the prospect of having to cut a million tiles around the bar, and the durability of slate used on the bar makes me shy away from using it on the floor too.  I liked the color of one of the fake oak peel and stick type flooring though, and the price is right, .98 sqft!  It’ll look nowhere near as nice as the real thing, but for now it’ll probably do the job needed for the bar and game rooms.  One other option that hasn’t been eliminated (priced) yet is to acid stain/dye/paint the concrete itself.

Then I hit the counter top section and looked at the formica samples to see if there’s anything that would hold us over until sometime in the future when we can afford to redo the kitchen and bar in granite or other manufactured product.  A couple of samples caught my eye that would complement the slate and faux wood flooring nicely.  Even better was the price point, a 4x8ft sheet can be had for under $100!

So I get home and hand the wife the flooring piece I bought… she giggled at me… wtf?

“Quick and easy” she says.

With a puzzled look on my face I say “I’ll still have to cut all around the bar laying it…”

“Oh, that’s the floor??  I thought it was for the strips on the front of the bar!” …

Leave it up to someone not standing in the middle of the forest to see the tree and tell you how to spend $7 vs $30 and a fraction of the time by not having to rip, fit, and stain wood inserts!  I went downstairs, sure enough, perfect fit!  I still had to cut a piece to bring it up flush, but the finish product nails the look I’ve had in my head since day one.

Here’s a couple of pics of the days work!

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It’s been what seems like decades since I’ve spent any meaningful time working on the basement.  I’ve been too occupied with some other non-basement projects.  So I took a few days off work around my birthday in August and cashed in a stack of credit card bonus points for some Lowe’s gift cards.  I added those to the birthday haul and it was off to the man cave!

The store-bought floor cabinets have been placed on vapor barrier, kicked up a bit with 1×6′s under the ends, joined together and mounted to the walls.  Rear wall outlets have been relocated to become over-the-counter-top outlets, and the beverage cooler has been slid in for fit with access holes cut to the in-cabinet outlet.  All that remains for that portion is to get some 1/2″ ply for tops and then figure out what we’re going to use for the surface.

We’ve bounced around the idea of using the 12×12 tiles that consist of 1/2″ or 1″ slate tiles for the upper level bar top, but we kinda think it’ll be ‘slate overkill’.  There are some 12×12 with slate and colored glass mixed in that we kinda like though.  I’ve also worked through the process in my head of a thin river-rock tile with coarse sand looking grout then pouring a 1/2″ or so of epoxy on top of that to make it look like a creek bed under water, but the mess I’m guaranteed to make is not appealing.  I’m sure the right thing will make itself known when the time is right.  For the main working counter top, we’re clueless on that as well, if the price is right, it’ll probably just match the upper bar finish.

Moving back around the front of the bar, I put some masonite peg board on the backs of the light boxes.  It’ll be hidden from view so I didn’t care what it looked like.  It was cheap, and the holes will add ventilation to whatever lighting ends up in them.  For the front of the boxes I’m thinking about thicker acrylic/plexiglass and doing a custom paint on the back vs using a type of stained or painted glass… Knees will be bumping things under there ya know!

Then it was on to the lions share of gift card usage so far, bar-front tile!  I picked up a lower end tile saw and FORTY THREE boxes of 4×4″ tumbled slate (9 pieces per box for 1sqft of coverage).  I actually had to hit two different Lowes to get all that I needed after sorting through boxes with broken tiles or extremely rounded corners.  I projected 41 boxes but wanted a couple extra in case of work-site breakage and also leftovers may be made into coasters after adding some cork backing.  I also read around where people use these tiles as back-splashes and use power-grab construction adhesive instead of mortar/thin-set.  The guy at Lowes talked me into the dry-mix instead and I bought that, but when it came time to mess with mixing some up, I said screw it and returned it and bought some tubes of power-grab maximum strength.

Today I fired up the tape measure, calculator and wet saw and got the long-leg of the bar mostly tiled!  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.  New goal is bar and game room finished enough for a new years party!  (Year omitted on purpose )

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Part of being in the DIY construction world is being able to know when you’re biting off more than you can chew and looking for economical ways to move your projects along.  So a few weeks ago I sat down with Google Sketchup and started thinking up a new backbar after not being able to really find what I wanted for sale on craigslist over the last few months.  I saw some similar things, but just nothing that would fix the intended end theme of the room.  I googled around and got some ideas and the image below grew from those ideas.  I should be able to pull it off as it’s literally a glorified bookcase on it’s side, hung on the wall with some small shelves on either end.

The liquor shelves will be lit from beneath (I hope) and the center panel will be mirrored with to-be-determined lettering.  The name is up in the air as (as you can see from the pics) my beautiful wife got me a scratch-n-dent beverage cooler for Christmas and had a friend of mine cut her a vinyl decal for it.  The other option on the table is ‘The Hidden Spring’, a play on our street name.

Moving back to the original subject of this entry…  I kept flip flopping on the cabinetry behind the bar.  The bar itself I’m not planning to put any storage in other than the bottom shelf for simplicity sake.  So one evening while we were out to dinner and the kids were climbing around on the playground, I had and idea and whipped out my phone and pulled up Lowes’ website.  To my shock, it wouldnt be too insanely expensive to use pre-fab cabinets that they keep in stock!  It would look 10x better than anything I could pull off, would save me a month of weekends building them, and would end up costing me just as much to build my own after counting for materials and pre-made doors (I’m not that good, period!)

I fired up sketchup again and pulled up the website.  After checking my measurements in the basement twice, the stars were just too perfectly aligned!  I was only just under 2 inches short on completely filling in between the bar and the back wall and it would leave me space perfectly for the cooler too.  That there ladies and germs is what I call an omen.

I picked up 1 5′ft ‘sink base’, 2 36″ sink bases, and 1 18″ drawer base this morning after the kids built their project at Lowes.  After 10% discount (I *love* the coupon in the change of address packets *smirk*) and $250 in gift cards, I was out the door with cabinetry for under $250 out of pocket!!  My dad and brother helped get them home and into the basement, and well, the pics can tell the rest of the story.

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The family life (and general lack of motivation as far as the basement is concerned) has kept me pretty busy the last few months but I’ve chipped away at it here and there.  I had intended to make some massive strides over the week between christmas and new years but the first attempt was rewarded with a migraine after about an hour of work.

A few days later I met up with my dad at his work to pick up a mountain of recycled construction waste type wood (shipping crate type stuff) that I figured would lend itself to various projects around the house, including some of the ‘behind the scenes’ parts of the bar.  So I gathered up some motivation and worked on the light box inserts for the bar!

Pictured in the gallery is an early shot of the general framing of things, and a couple of shots as it sits after framing in 3 of the 4 light boxes.  I’ve still not yet figured out if I want to use a couple of fluroescent tubes in each or maybe snake some rope lighting on the back (yet to be added.)  The fact that I didnt stock up on clear white christmas rope lighting will pretty much ensure that I’ll pick that option I’m sure.

As far as the tile goes, things are lining up pretty much dead up with that I’ve expected based on google sketchup plans, that being that some tiles will have to be cut down a small amount to allow an additional tile to fit in in front of the light boxes to keep from having to do gaps between them.  Hindsight being 20/20 I should have changed the dimensions of the bar to accommodate NO CUTS, but hey, everyone that knows me knows I work in my own stubborn reality anyway.

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