The Bar!

I have been quite busy since last Spring. With what? you might ask. Well, a number of years ago, I spent the entire summer months working on our home here in Ringoes, NJ. That entailed siding the entire house to match the existing siding on our detached two car - two story garage. Besides the siding job, I also (1) stucco'd the chimney (2) replaced a number of doors and windows (3) eliminated a pair or unneccesary windows on the far North end of the house (4) closed off the two openings that marked the old attached two car garage (5) fabricated a handful of attic ventilation louvers for - what else - ventilation (6) added new crawspace ventilation vents (7) encased all of the trim on the house with aluminum, making the exterior pretty much needing no upkeep except for an annual wash down with my pressure washer and (8) hung new aluminum one piece gutters all around the house.

In regards to the number of things done that summer, #'s 2 - 3 and 4 had much to do with "future plans". Being that I had had a brand new large garage built years beforehand, I could now plan on using the old two car attached garage for some other purpose. Finally, last year, I decided to move ahead with the project. The 23' X 23" room was going to be transformed into a beautiful bar room complete with fireplace for warmth, a nice big bar for entertaining, a self built poker table and a dart board for "guys nights" and of course, what would a bar room be without a pool table?

I began the project last April and I am in the middle of wrapping up the final aspects of the room these days. As I sit here and type this, I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of the pool table. I am waiting for the warmer spring weather to build the poker table and a few other projects for the room since I will need the warm weather to facilitate the finishing of the projects. I will be using the same finish that I used for all of the oak in the room, and to tell you the truth, it was some potent stuff. With the warm weather, I will be able to use my wood shop to finish the stuff instead of trying to use the house. Don't want to stink it up.

I still need to order the foam for the window seat area for cushions (which I am probably going to make myself). Break out the sewing machine! Besides these items, the room is pretty much done.

I hope the pictures below came out ok. I am very new to this blog website and so, I am still a bit ignorant as to how things work.

To give you an idea of how the room looked before I started the conversion, here is a pic of the Northwest corner.

Now, the same corner just about a month or so ago.

If these pics come across ok, I might give a more detailed look at the process of turning the old garage into a really great place to congregate with our freinds.

Stay tuned!