The Bar

Our latest house project has been the construction of a bar to go between our kitchen and family room. Before Alder was even born, Tom (a.k.a. Paw-Paw) came up and cut half of the wall out between these rooms and since then we have been using a piece of scrap wood - we have enjoyed this situation, especially since we write lists/draw pictures on it.

But it is time to move on up to a more aesthetically pleasing surface. Jason works with a guy with his own saw mill and an abundance of beautiful lumber. We drew up our plans...

... and then Jason spent several hours at his house several months ago choosing, planing, and jointing some quarter-sawn oak for our soon-to-be bar. For those that do not know, planing and jointing process a rough-cut piece of lumber so that it is perfectly flat on the top and bottom and on the sides, respectively. These flat surfaces can then be glued together perfectly.

A few weeks ago, we got started on the process of constructing the bar from these boards. We had to buy some wood glue and clamps - we do not have any photos of this step, but it was intense - looked as if we were building a space ship out of braces and clamps. I should mention here that this was all done in our backyard, not a wood shop.

Then we cut a round edge (using a 5-gallon bucket as a pseudo-too small-template).

as well as several L-brackets (Jason drew a template and cut several from a piece of oak)

Then we routed all the edges of the bar and brackets

Then we sanded, and sanded, and sanded some more.
Then we stained just a little – ‘golden oak’
Then we lacquered and sanded, and lacquered and sanded, and lacquered some more.

Viola! A beautiful and very functional bar and shelf. Yeah!!
My cookbooks are out of the way and we have more than doubled our counter space!!
I think it turned out pretty good for a shade-tree project - a Paw-Paw phrase.

We are waiting on three bar stools to make it fully functional...soon we will be eating dinner and watching our Baywatch DVDs!