Happy Fall All! The heater kicked on for the first time this morning, so it is officially Fall at our house. The leaves are starting to fall off the trees, and short sleeves have turned to long almost overnight. I managed to get this little project finished before the chill set in and painting outside became challenging.

Modern Deco Bar Makeover.

I found this neat little vintage cabinet a couple months ago in an alley nearby. She had definitely seen better days to be sure. Someone had made her into an audio cabinet and had cut out a hole in the bottom and the back and added a speaker holder inside. The top mount for the right-hand cabinet was broken, with the wood broken off where the bracket screws in. I knew this would be a fair amount of work to fix, but the ol’ girl had “good bones”. The instant I saw her I knew she’d make a great bar.

First thing I did was fix the broken wood with wood glue and tiny nails, then screwed the bracket back where it should be. Then I patched and repaired the wood with wood fill, let it dry, and sanded the area smooth. I then removed the old vintage hardware and patched the old holes. Then it was sanding time, just a light sanding to get it ready to paint. I also removed the wood piece inside that had been added for a speaker. I cut a new wood piece to fit over the hole in the bottom, and covered that and the ugly back pieces with a pretty Asian brocade fabric I had lying around (I think I found it at the thrift store long ago).

In Progress…

I painted the feet first with a chrome metallic spray paint, which I also used to paint the metal plate that is on the front of the bar now (This was an old door plate left over from work on the house. It covers the old hardware holes perfectly and adds some nice bling to the front of the bar). I used black gloss spray paint on the rest of the piece, 2 cans worth. The finish wasn’t quite to my liking so I added a couple more coats of gloss polyurethane on top of that.

I love this little bar! It looks great in the dining room and adds much needed bar and wine space. We have room inside to fully stock it and will add wine to the lower right-hand space inside soon.

The reckoning: I bought the pair of acrylic and chrome pulls on ebay for $17. I spent about $15 on paint, and bought the vintage Lucite tray on ebay for $22. I already had the fabric on hand and don’t recall what I paid for it, probably about $5. Not bad for a new bar! By the way, those two big awesome brass candlesticks were also found in the alley. I still can’t quite believe someone would throw them away, but I’m so glad they did! The brass candlesticks on top of the bar were found at the thrift store for a few bucks each and the decanter is one I painted about 15 years ago but still love. The Halloween “snow” globe came from the Target after-Halloween sale (50% off) about 7-8 years ago.