I've never done a "build" thread despite being an endless tinkerer and stubbornly DIY-minded individual (often to my wife's dismay), so I figured this might be fun to post up. It's not a Jeep, but hopefully someone can get some entertainment from it.
First, some background. Some years ago my wife's co-worker said her husband was cleaning out his storage unit full of equipment from his failed restaurant. Within was a commercial cooler that he offered to sell me for $500. Being the "occasional" (ahem) drinker that I am, I figured I could put it to good use. This, my friends, was the start of my epic journey into the world of building my own bar while knowing precisely squat about how to do so.
Being as my house was too small to stick this beast in, and the fact that we spend most of our time outside on the patio by the pool (because it's Florida and you either stay the fuck inside in the A/C or maintain a distance of no more than 50' from a body of water at all times), I decided it'd be a good idea to stick it out on the patio and build a bar around it. It doesn't look very complicated, this should be easy!
I bought some pressure-treated 2x6", framed it out, and covered the outside in 1/2" birch veneered plywood. Sweet! And then, as is what often happens, I got distracted by other projects. And there it sat for a while.
Fast forward to the end of last year, and my wife stumbles upon another gem (god I love that woman). A four tap, double tower commercial kegerator on Facebook marketplace for $250. I was already hauling that thing off before the next person could even inquire about it. I cleaned it up, replaced all the lines, picked up new regulators and a 20lb tank of CO2. Hell yeah! Needless to say, that kinda lit a fire under my ass to finish building the bar. Well, that and the wife bitching at me for having a bunch of equipment and tools strewn about the patio and a half-assed skeleton of a bar to put it behind...
Naturally, sitting outside untreated and having dogs go in and out of the pool shaking all over it for months, it had developed mold and discoloration on the birch veener, so pretty much the whole thing needed to be sanded. Then there's also the fact that I now owned more equipment than I did when I initially framed it out, so of course it wasn't all going to fit behind it and I had to extend the bar out. Great. Nothing I love more than doing a job twice. And sanding. Fuck sanding.
Part I
First, some background. Some years ago my wife's co-worker said her husband was cleaning out his storage unit full of equipment from his failed restaurant. Within was a commercial cooler that he offered to sell me for $500. Being the "occasional" (ahem) drinker that I am, I figured I could put it to good use. This, my friends, was the start of my epic journey into the world of building my own bar while knowing precisely squat about how to do so.
Being as my house was too small to stick this beast in, and the fact that we spend most of our time outside on the patio by the pool (because it's Florida and you either stay the fuck inside in the A/C or maintain a distance of no more than 50' from a body of water at all times), I decided it'd be a good idea to stick it out on the patio and build a bar around it. It doesn't look very complicated, this should be easy!
I bought some pressure-treated 2x6", framed it out, and covered the outside in 1/2" birch veneered plywood. Sweet! And then, as is what often happens, I got distracted by other projects. And there it sat for a while.
Fast forward to the end of last year, and my wife stumbles upon another gem (god I love that woman). A four tap, double tower commercial kegerator on Facebook marketplace for $250. I was already hauling that thing off before the next person could even inquire about it. I cleaned it up, replaced all the lines, picked up new regulators and a 20lb tank of CO2. Hell yeah! Needless to say, that kinda lit a fire under my ass to finish building the bar. Well, that and the wife bitching at me for having a bunch of equipment and tools strewn about the patio and a half-assed skeleton of a bar to put it behind...
Naturally, sitting outside untreated and having dogs go in and out of the pool shaking all over it for months, it had developed mold and discoloration on the birch veener, so pretty much the whole thing needed to be sanded. Then there's also the fact that I now owned more equipment than I did when I initially framed it out, so of course it wasn't all going to fit behind it and I had to extend the bar out. Great. Nothing I love more than doing a job twice. And sanding. Fuck sanding.
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