We love to entertain.  When we moved to the homestead, this built-in bar feature was definitely a selling point.  It’s gone through quite the transformation, and today you will get to see the final reveal.  It mixes a little bit of Colonial or Traditional Americana style with some modern elements to make for the perfect spot for entertaining.

Before

First, let’s go back to the way the bar area looked when we moved in.  Custom fabric helped to hide the shelving both on the top and bottom.

So that was the first to go.  This is what it looked like for quite a while – we took off the doors and removed the material from both the top and bottom sections of the bar.

The bar table area was painted white…. which is always a good idea in theory, but bad in execution.  The red wine left quite a few marks on the paint.

Here is a close up in case you didn’t see them in the first picture!

After

Here is the final reveal of the entire bar!  I’ll take you through section by section with what we did.

You might be able to see it a little better on the picture above rather than below, but we added real crown molding to the entire room. You can see on the second BEFORE picture that the molding is a bit miss-matched.

The original plan was to add a silvery-gray wall paper to the back of the shelving, but it just didn’t work for some reason.  Sooooo….. Plan B was to go old school and faux paint it.  I did keep the wallpaper because I have some other ideas up my sleeve.  Surprise, surprise, I know, right?!?!?

Dad helped with a new wine glass holder.  The old one was too wide and I can’t tell you how many glasses we broke that fell through!  This new wine glass holder helps our glasses to fit like a glove and no worries about spills.  We have several sets of vintage wine glasses on display.  We buy the super cheapy ones for everyday use.

The red wine stained white countertop was replaced with a smokey gray granite countertop.  The initial goal was to find a remnant to use because it was such a small space.  Save the planet and save the change purse.  But that didn’t work out.  We get credit for at least trying, right?

My favorite feature in the dining room is the exposed brick.  This room was an addition back in the 80’s and fortunately, they kept the brick exterior to make an exposed wall for the interior.  LOVE!

Of course, old school spirits compliment the bar.  No bar should be without them, right?

This 8th ID sign is one of Hubby’s favorites.  Instead of hanging it up like a regular picture, I added the black and white plaid ribbon embellishment.

Love, hugs, and shaken… not stirred.