Wine Bar

We have a wall in our living room that has been screaming out for a built-in wine bar. In fact, we have been dreaming about installing one since before we put a contract on the house. After three years of talking about it, we are at a point financially and design-wise to get started. When I say design-wise, I mean that we have kicked about a lot of ideas over the years and finally have selected a design that is going to work well for our space and for us. Many ideas died because they were too complex or dominated the room. It feels good to finally have direction. The idea is the hard part; the execution is straightforward.

Our New Wine Bar

Wednesday October 21, 2020

We're finally ready to get going and we have agreed on a basic design of a countertop above a base cabinet containing two wine refrigerators and some bulk wine racking, using old produce crates and found objects attached to the walls for shelving for glassware and so forth. Armed with basic dimensions, I start sketching and by Friday, I have a basic elevation in mind. Meanwhile, I am keeping myself busy by building a rustic table/bookshelf for the kitchen.

Ann starts looking for vintage soda and produce crates on Etsy and the web. This sparks an idea that I want to incorporate produce crates into the base cabinet.

Saturday October 24, 2020

After measuring our space and collecting dimensions for our potential refrigerators and racks, I make a scale drawing of the bar elevation and all the décor items to make sure that Ann and I are on the same page and to have a plan for how to proceed. Each of the décor items is a little scale cut-out that we can move about to see how it best fits. After pushing things about in several configurations, we ended up with the following. It is a good compromise; not every idea we have can be incorporated.

Bar Elevation with Moveable Décor

Ann orders the apricot and soda crates from California. I order some incidentals for building shelves and wine glass storage.

Sunday October 25, 2020

With furniture, I always like to do a build-buy analysis. In Virginia, I had a killer woodshop with everything necessary to build whatever I wanted. Here in Oregon, I don't really have a shop and am limited to what I can do with hand tools in the garage, a bit limited, but still, a lot. I could hack out wine shelving in my garage, but it would never be up to my standards for want of the appropriate woodworking machinery.

Accordingly, for the wine shelving, I go the buy route rather than the build route and order an 84-bottle maple double-deep wine rack from Pennsylvania. I will still have to finish and assemble it, but that's actually a benefit in that I will be able to match the stain on the wine rack and on the base cabinet that I will build in the garage.

The shop says they will deliver the racking in 4-6 weeks. It's good to have a backlog of work! In this day of instant-Amazon everything, handmade to order items seem anachronistic. I won't be able to build the base cabinet until the wine racking arrives and I can finish it and assemble it. The size of this rack will drive both critical dimensions: the height and the width of the base cabinet. And so I will wait.

I also order two wine refrigerators from a restaurant supply house. They will arrive in a week or so.

In an unsurprising move, Ann decides we should repaint the wall on which the bar will be installed. I don't disagree.

Monday October 26, 2020

We go to Lowe's to see about butcherblock countertops. I would like the countertop to be in our space for several weeks so that it can acclimatize to our humidity, so I want to get my order in. I am not expecting to find butcher block countertops in stock, but they are. On the way home with our new countertop in the back of the truck, we stop at the paint store and pick up paint for the wall and stain and finish for the countertop and base cabinets.

For the wall, Ann decides on a color called Angel Food Cake, a warm yellowish ochre. It will serve as a great backdrop to everything while warming the room considerably. I get a dark stain for the base cabinet and wine racking: I want them to disappear and let the refrigerators and wine stand out. I also get what I thought was a barely-colored maple stain for the countertop (it proves to be otherwise) and a clear coat for everything.

Tuesday October 27, 2020

I get ready to paint, removing switchcovers etc. and gathering all my materials. I take the following "before" shot to compare ultimately with the "after" shot to come.

This is the Corner Where the Bar Will Go

Wednesday October 28, 2020

I apply the first coat of paint. I hope that one coat will do it, but that is a pipe dream. I am too nit-picky to let one coat suffice. Even if nobody else notices the imperfections in a one-coat job, I will and certainly Annie Eagle-Eye will too. After I am all cleaned up, she decides that she wants the underside of the opening into the dining room painted as well. Mañana.

Amazon notifies us that one of our packages will not be delivered. Looks like a FedEx oops. I've seen a lot of crushed boxes in my days of shipping wine to customers around the country. I reorder the undeliverable wine glass holders and shelf brackets.

We find out that our apricot and soda crates should arrive on Sunday. It amazes me that since the onset of COVID that we have non-stop deliveries in our neighborhood seven days a week until late into the evening. Every upheaval has its winners and its losers and Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and the USPS are all winners in the days of COVID.

After First Coat of Paint

Thursday October 29, 2020

The final coat goes on quickly and easily. All that's left is to replace the switch and outlet covers and that happens in the late afternoon. Ann is tickled with the paint job, which looks less yellow and more ochre than in the photo above. It gives her more ideas about how she wants the rest of the interior painted. I remind her that I am too busy being retired for her to add all these things to my honey-do list.

We find out that in quick succession that our crates will be delivered on Sunday, then Wednesday. I guess they're on a mule train from SoCal.

Saturday October 31, 2020

Frustration galore! FedEx delivers the two wine refrigerators to our front porch today and I open both to find that each is damaged and neither is functioning. One will not power up and the other will, but its controls do not work. I am slightly unhinged for the rest of the day.

Sunday November 1, 2020

Firstish thing, I chat with someone at Customer Support from the restaurant supply house. It wasn't too painful and the long and short of it is that two new refrigerators are coming my way. Still to be determined is the fate of the two non-functional units that I already have.

Ann is clearly thinking about the bar today when she asks, "Will that long mirror I have upstairs work on the bar?" On inspection, it is too large. Then she pulls out two small 14"x14" mirror panes in leather frames which are the perfect size to put behind the liquor bottles.

I am making a single riser for the liquor bottles made out of two single-bottle wooden wine gift boxes. I do a mock-up of what the liquor bottles will look like perched on the wine boxes and backed by the mirrors. It looks great.

Liquor Riser Mock-Up

We kick it around and decide to turn the wine boxes on their sides so that the opening faces forward rather than down. We play with putting a bottle inside, but it is for naught: you cannot see the bottle for the liquor bottles in front. I get the idea to put lights into the boxes to back light the liquor bottles and try it out with a flashlight. The idea is a keeper. Now to find some lights and install them in the wine boxes.

The waylaid shelving parts that had to be reordered from Amazon arrive today. Ann and I discuss building a shelf by reusing wood from an old dresser. Ann unearths two Rogue Brewery "Dead Guy" bottle stoppers that she wants to incorporate. I know just how to use them.

On-line, I find some LED strip lights that can be cut to length and should be perfect for lighting the wine boxes.

Monday November 2, 2020

The restaurant supply house wants the two non-functional wine coolers back—no surprise there. It will be such a joy to repack them and get them to FedEx. Sarcasm intended. 

Tuesday November 3, 2020

It's Election Day across the country, except here in Oregon where we always vote by mail: we voted some weeks ago. I have a wonderful time packing up the two wine coolers. Did you catch the sarcasm? Tracking information shows that our new coolers will be here on Friday. I hope to get the FedEx delivery guy to haul the two return boxes back to the depot on his truck.

In the afternoon, our crates arrive, a day ahead of what the shipper had last told us. Our delivery includes six apricot boxes from Zoria Farms in California (defunct dried fruit processor successfully sued by the EEOC for discrimination issues), two zinc parts boxes, and one wooden RC Cola flat. Subsequently, Ann will steal the RC Cola flat for another of her projects and give me a somewhat rickety Coca-Cola flat to use in its stead.

Our Crate Haul

Three of the apricot crates are going on the wall for shelving and the remaining three are becoming part of the base cabinet for the bar. The other smaller boxes are also going on the wall.

Wednesday November 4, 2020

I have been collecting a list of sundries and fasteners that I need from Lowe's. The actual trip to get these things was waiting for the apricot crates to arrive so that I could take some measurements. Armed with my list, I head for Lowe's and pick up all sorts of small items that I will need to finish the job. While I have a good store of fasteners in the garage, I still don't have all that I need for this job.

Ann and I go through the apricot crates and decide which will go where. I see that I have a good bit of repair work and cleaning to do.

The deep frame for the shadow box for my copper Bourbon crate stencil arrives in the late afternoon and I disassemble it and mark exactly where I want to fasten the stencil to the backer board. Actually doing the work is a job for tomorrow. Tonight, it's time for a great bottle of Pinot Noir.

Thursday November 5, 2020

In the morning, I get right on framing my Bourbon crate stencil, an item that I bought at an antique show at the DC Armory at the far end of Capitol Hill back in the 1990 time frame. The results look pretty good. I had been noodling on a way to make the stencil legible for years. Mounting it on a bright white backer board seems to be just the ticket. The stencil is destined to go in the center of the wall above the bar.

Pebble-Ford Bourbon Crate Stencil

I love that this stencil has been modified. If you expand the photo, you can see that the copper stencil has been patched: the 3.0 before "0 Gallons" is a patch. I don't know if they changed the size of the crate or the size of the bottles or merely repaired a mistake or fixed a broken part of the stencil.

In any event, 3 gallons is an old case size for liquor bottles, which in my lifetime were bottled in fifths, (1/5 of a gallon; 4/5 of a quart) and then after 1980 in 750 ml. Current 12-bottle cases are 9 liters (2.38 gallons); old cases of fifths were 9.1 liters (2.4 gallons).  A 3-gallon case would have been a dozen full 32-ounce quarts. Another interesting thing: old labels from this distillery read Pebble-Ford while the stencil reads Pebbleford.

We get an email in the morning that our wine rack has been shipped, weeks earlier than we had expected. I guess we'll see it in about a week. I am not really surprised as the fabrication is not at all complicated. I feel certain that the real hold up would have been the finishing shop. But since I am finishing the racks myself, that saves the shop a lot of time that they would have built into the schedule.

And in a great surprise in mid-afternoon, UPS shows up with the wine rack parts. I open the boxes to check on the shipment and am pleased at the quality of the work. Now to finish them, weeks ahead of schedule. No doubt there will be pressure to get the bar wrapped up before Thanksgiving, not that we are having any guests on account of COVID.

After looking at the rack parts, I spend a good while outside working on stiffening up the apricot crates, pulling useless nails and replacing them with good ring-shank nails that should not move around. The crates are a lot stiffer as a result. It's a miserable chilly rainy day to be outside working. I dare not start finishing the wine racks with all this humidity.

Friday November 6, 2020

I unpack all the wine rack components and move them to the garage in preparation for staining and clear coating them. I am not working on them today because I do not want to be out behind the house when FedEx arrives. We are expecting delivery of the two new refrigerators today. We move the ones that will be returned to the front porch. I hope the delivery comes before my 4pm conference call, but that proves not to happen.

Late afternoon, I do a quick sketch of the base cabinet and get my lumber list together. I figure out a way to eliminate 1x4 stock from the cabinet: one less thing to buy. I will change my mind again.

Our FedEx driver shows up at moments after six. Our refrigerators are the last thing on his truck. The kid is a beast from Mali: he moves the 100-pound refrigerators solo and effortlessly. He is many inches shorter than me.

Saturday November 7, 2020

Well before coffee and still in bed, I order the LED lights for the liquor bottle riser. Isn't wireless technology a wonderful thing? They'll be here next weekend.

First item on the agenda today, I open the wine refrigerator cartons. Yet again, both units are damaged. I go back and forth with Customer Support at the restaurant supply house; they want to give me some cash to keep the damaged units, but their first offer is insulting. I counter. No resolution today, except that I will never order large equipment from them again.

I put a finish coat on the wine rack components. It takes nearly 4 hours and I'm standing in the chilly air out on our breezeway nearly to dusk. It showers on and off, not the best weather for applying a finish, and there is a cold bite to the air. My feet are cold from standing on bare concrete for hours.

Once inside, I push one of the refrigerators against the bar wall to see how it fits in relation to the depth of the counter top and I have a sudden moment of clarity. The electrical outlet for the refrigerators is directly behind one of the units, meaning that the plugs are going to force the already quite deep units further out from the wall. I will replace the standard plugs on the refrigerator cords with flat plugs. There's always something unexpected in every project.

Sunday November 8, 2020

After the de rigueur coffee, I assemble the wine racking in the middle of our kitchen floor. It goes together simply and logically, a great thing because there are no instructions in the package. I move it to the bar wall to see how it will fit in relation to the refrigerator units and Ann and I mull over how high the counter top needs to be to make reasonable use of the top shelf of the wine rack.

If the counter goes directly across the top of the wine rack posts, we will be able to just slide a standard Bordeaux bottle onto the top shelf with a couple millimeters to spare. A large California Cab bottle will not fit, so I decide to raise the counter 3/4s of an inch above the rack posts. Large Burgundy and Champagne bottles still will not fit, but we have lots of room for those elsewhere. The top shelf seems destined for our large supply of vintage Port 375s.

Test Fitting the Wine Rack

Pushing the refrigerator against the wall yesterday and discovering the electrical outlet issue got my mind working. During the night, I am sure that I re-engineered the base cabinet in my sleep. When I wake, I have a brand new plan for the base cabinet that will change my lumber order drastically.

I get a laughable offer from the restaurant supply house for me to keep the two damaged units. My response is direct, polite, and outlines exactly what I want in the way of remedy, very significantly more than they offered. I've done the math and I know what it will cost them in terms of shipping expense on top of what they have already spent and how much they are likely to be able to sell damaged units for, if even they can find a buyer. They can refuse my counteroffer, but it will be less painful to agree to my terms.

I spend a half an hour sketching the new base cabinet plan in detail so that I can revamp my lumber order.

Monday November 9, 2020

Mid-morning, I get a reply back from the restaurant supply house agreeing to my terms. It is a relief on my end in that I can get moving with construction of the base cabinet. I'm sure it is also a relief for them. I am becoming resigned to installing cosmetically damaged units.

After coffee, I head to Lowe's with my lumber order on my phone and spend 45 minutes hand selecting the fir and poplar lumber for the base cabinet. 

It is a gloomy, humid, and cold day. In fact, it looks and feels like snow is coming. Ann and I stain all the lumber that will be visible on the base cabinet. It has been my experience in doing finish carpentry that it is better to stain the lumber before assembly. Our fingers are terribly cold: it is just 37 degrees.

In preparation for starting to build the base cabinet, I lay out the locations on the wall and mark all of the studs. Our house is new construction, so the studs are just where they should be. No hunting around and no random stud locations. I have stories to tell about restoring an 1890s Victorian house.

Tuesday November 10, 2020

I did not sleep much last night, constantly running cut lists and working through niggling details about how to best build the base cabinet for the wine bar. Although I am tired, most of the details are worked out and I am ready to proceed. I spend a good while getting everything set up: chop saw, extension rollers, compressor, nail guns, hoses, and so forth. I forget to charge my drill batteries and the first one dies 20 minutes in. The second one, probably faulty, has totally discharged since I last charged it, maybe a month ago.

Ann and I move furniture and the carpet out of the way and I start to cut and assemble, at least until my drill dies. I cut more pieces and grab a tiny bite of lunch while the drill is recharging. Five hours later, the base cabinet is assembled, trimmed, leveled, and screwed to the studs.

Base Cabinet Finished and Trimmed

Ann is excited now that she can finally see what is happening. I work well from 2D drawings; it is more difficult for her to go from 2D to 3D. She asks to move a refrigerator and the wine rack into place so she can get a better sense of things. She seems pleased.

Before calling it an evening, I glue up one of the apricot boxes, one side of which is delaminating. Tomorrow I will tackle the three apricot boxes that will become the shelf unit on the end of the bar. This will be a matter of cutting one of the boxes down so that the stack of three boxes fits underneath the counter top. Cutting, routing, sanding, and finishing the countertop is the major task left. I hope to get to that on Thursday.

Wednesday November 11, 2020

First thing today is a haircut. After that, I take apart the most beat apricot crate and I rebuild it so that it is 5 and 7/8 inches high. Then I stack the three apricot crates to form shelves at the left end of the bar and attach them to the bar framing.

There is plenty of time left in the day, so I want to test fit the countertop and mark where to cut it to length. Ann helps me move the beast into place. It is heavy: two feet by eight feet by an inch and a half thick, a substantial piece of wood.

Test Fitting the Countertop

We schlep the countertop outside and balance it between my work table and a portable extension roller. I set up a guide for the circular saw and with Ann helping hold the offcut, I trim the end. Next up, I give it a light sanding. The cardboard protective corners were taped onto the surface and have left some adhesive. I was going to rout the edge, but Ann asks me to keep it as is. I do a slight bevel of the edges with the sander.

After I wipe the sawdust off with a tack cloth, I give counter top a quick coat of "maple" stain and wipe it down with a rag to even out the coat. It is more orange than we had wanted; I feel mislead by the manufacturer's photo. Dumb me. I should have tested it on the bottom. Oh well, Ann and I are picking nits and in the grand scheme, we will be the only ones to notice.

Back inside, I set the one-inch brads that I used on the cabinet face frame and find that they are insufficiently long to hold the frame on, so I go back with the big nail gun and some two-inch finishing nails. A bit of putty in the nail holes and I am done for the day. There's a lot of clean up to be done and we're due for a week of rain starting tonight. It takes 45 minutes to get everything under cover.

I start applying polyurethane finish coats tomorrow; the weather forecast is less than ideal.

Thursday November 12, 2020

Midmorning, it's not raining yet and I apply the first coat of polyurethane. I was thinking it might take four clear coats, but now I'm thinking perhaps two will do. Everything is at a standstill waiting on the counter top to be done.

My Makeshift Workshop: First Coat of Poly Applied

Because the garage is a bit of a mess storing my tools and gardening gear, I am working partly in the covered breezeway and partly in the garage. One of these winter days I will get started on building a workshop inside the garage, but until then, I work outside to keep the sawdust outside. It is certainly suboptimal for doing finish work, but it is what I have.

The LED lights for the liquor riser arrive in the late afternoon. I will get on installing them in the morning: now it's time for a bottle of 2017 Stephen Goff Pinot Noir Weber Vineyard. Stephen is the winemaker at Colene Clemens on Ribbon Ridge; this is his personal project from the old-vine Pommard fruit at Weber Vineyard in Dundee Hills. Delicious, but Pommard is more in Ann's wheelhouse than mine. My favorite clones tend to Wädenswil, Coury, and Dijon 777.

Late in the day, FedEx arrives with one of the wine refrigerators that was supposed to be returned to the warehouse. Oops. At least we caught the driver before he hauled the box up onto the porch. I offer to help him reload it into this truck. As much as I can see that he wants a hand, he gives the industry standard our-insurance-carrier-won't-allow-it demurral.

The forecasted rain finally arrives just after dark. It is a true Pineapple Express, a river of balmy air originating out in the Pacific near Hawaii and laden with rain. These storms always come at us from a few degrees west of due south and they lash us with wind and rain. Unfortunately in this case, our breezeway is oriented west-east, the direction of our prevailing winds. Usually it stays dry under the breezeway, but the whipping south winds soak everything. Ann and I hurriedly shove the table top into the garage where I wipe it down. It is still tacky.

Friday November 13, 2020

Given the lashing rain all night, I am not sure if the first coat of poly will be sufficiently dry to apply a second. Fortunately, it is and I sand the counter top to ensure the second coat sticks well and then spend twenty minutes applying and brushing out a second coat. This coat looks much better than the first. I am not sure if a third coat will be required.

Liquor Riser with Lights Installed

Next up, I put together the liquor riser from the two wooden wine boxes and install the LED lights inside them. These self-adhesive LED strip lights are so cool! We set the riser up with a few liquor bottles so Ann can imagine the end result; we are both pleased with the outcome. This is nearly the final project until after we can install the counter top and that depends on how many finish coats are required. I smell a finish line of this weekend.

I think I am done for the day, but after resting a while, I decide to take on attaching the first of the apricot crates to the wall for shelving. It will be much simpler to install the shelving before I put the counter top on because I can get much closer to the wall. And I will be that much closer to being done with this nearly month-long project. It will be great to have our living room back from being an impromptu storage facility for wine refrigerators and tools.

The Three Apricot Crates Attached to the Wall

I have a couple of wine glass racks that I want to attach to the bottom crate before fastening it to the wall. It will be nearly impossible to attach them after the crate is on the wall. I measure to make sure that there is enough space to slide the glasses out of the rack without being blocked by the adjacent liquor bottles. The racks go on without issue and I move to installing the crate.

Attaching the first box to the wall proves to be a bear. Both my shoulders are a mess and I can barely lift my arms above my shoulders on some days, let alone support weight, not a great state of affairs for affixing shelving to walls. The pain makes me extremely grouchy and Ann bears the brunt of my mood. Sorry babe.

Once the lowest box is attached to the wall, it and a couple of spacer blocks support the second box which goes on much easier, thanks in part to lessons learned from installing the lowest box. Now to rest my arms for the final push, be it tomorrow or Sunday.

Saturday November 14, 2020

First thing, I check the countertop out in the garage. Good news: the second poly coat is sufficient and it has dried enough overnight to work with. Today will be the final push to complete the bar. Step 1: bring the bar top in and sit it on the base cabinet so that we can discuss where to locate the items over the left end of the bar.

Ann and I bicker a bit about where things should go, but finally decide on middle ground somewhere between where we both thought the shelves should go. After this, I have a shelf to build out of an old dresser of drawers and I need Ann's input on the shelf width, shelf depth, and placement of the iron pipe supports for the shelf. That shelf is the first thing I install followed by the Coca-Cola crate above it.

The afternoon moves along as I locate and install items on the wall. Ann helps me hold boxes while I drill the holes in the wall. The zinc parts crate in the center of the wall is the last major item to go on. After this, we put the bar top on and I attach it to the base cabinet.

Top on, I can now install the refrigerators and the wine rack. I put the door handles on the refrigerators and with the help of a hammer and a block of 2x4, I beat out the dents in the bashed in kickplate of one of them. Ann tilts the unit back so I can get up under it and hammer away. The results are not perfect, but they're good.

All the under counter items installed, I position the liquor riser on top of the bar and then install the mirrors behind them. Then, I move on to hanging the various framed items on the wall, child's play compared hanging crates for shelving. Meanwhile, Ann is relocating wine glasses, liquor bottles, and so forth to the new bar. I attach Ann's big wine opener to the end of the bar. 

Bar Complete, Wine Still to be Loaded

Mission accomplished! We open a bottle of wine in celebration.

Sunday November 15, 2020

We'll likely remember today as the day that Carter goes to MEPS in Maryland in preparation for traveling to Ft. Jackson in Columbia SC tomorrow to embark on basic training in the Army. Besides this, today is memorable for being the day that we consolidated all our wine from its various locations to the storage areas under the new bar.

All Done!

It feels good to be done as we load all our wine into the refrigerators and the racks. We're both happy with the results and happier still to get our living room back.