Thinking of winter

Okay, so I'm not necessarily thinking of winter, me and winter have a love/hate relationship, but I am thinking of winter projects.  While J's in school, the large projects, that I can't do myself, are put on hold.  His school work is top priority.  But we can start thinking about projects we want to accomplish over his breaks, like winter break.

Now that we've finished (okay, are about 80% finished) with all the "major" projects for a while, we can focus on smaller, cooler projects.  I take that back, our kitchen and bath were pretty cool, just a lot of work.  And some of the other projects we want to work on this winter are the downstairs family room and bath.

Our whole basement is finished, we have a large family room, a studio for J, a bedroom/office, and a full bath.  It's wonderful.  Buuuuuuuuuut, we haven't put any effort in making it a livable space.  We threw a couch and tv down there and called it a day.  Not really all that inviting.  We have plans, oh do we have plans for down there.

We would like to put a bar in.  We've always wanted a house with a little bar in it, how cool would that be when you had parties?  I'll tell you, pretty damn cool.  A few weeks ago while we were hunting for patio furniture, we came across a free standing Guinness bar that we loved, but the price tag was a little bitter.

http://www.pubstuffusa.com/products/home-bars/guinness-home-bar/

It's pretty cool, okay, it's fricken awesome.  But it's not so awesome that I'm going to pay, well you can click on the link and see what this baby is selling for. A little out of the price range we were looking at. But after a thorough goin' over, we decided we could build one of these. I mean, it's just a free standing cabinet with some decorative stuff on it. Our plan is to use a nice base cabinet from the Restore as a starting point and then add on. This way we can make one that will fit our space exactly.

 I've been mulling around the idea of doing a tiled top on the bar. Then we can pick up some nice tile at the restore, maybe even some marble. Or we can do an epoxy top, that would be cool. Or a butcher block top, that would look nice as well. So many options. But the plan right now is to draw up our plans and decided on what exactly we're going to do and how. Then we will be ready to work on it as soon as J's done with class. Yay!

I can't wait to work on the downstairs, it will be so nice to have a usable space that we want to spend time in.  It will also allow me to clean out some of our kitchen cabinets; all the liquor and all our glassware can go down there.  So it's a win, win situation.

~ So we've had a little bit of a delay on doing much of anything right now.  I got a phone call from a sick boy yesterday to pick up a drain auger on my way home from work, I knew this couldn't be good.  Our basement drain, which is in our finished bathroom, was overflowing all over the floor.  After a few hours of trying to auger ourselves and use the shop vac to try and get what ever was blocking the drain, and failing miserably  we called a plumber to come and take care of it for us.  So until they come out, we'll be using our water sparingly, which means no dishes, no laundry, and no (or very quick) showers.  Hopefully they can come out soon.  Not being able to use the water is awful.  Yay for being an adult and owning a house :-)