The $10 Bar Makeover

I've been working on this project over the past 2 weeks in short bursts and now it's finally done!

If you've been following here for a while, you'll remember we brightened up the basement with white paint.  You can read about that HERE.  The lighting isn't very bright and the pine walls just made it darker.  We weren't sure what we wanted to do with the bar, so we just waited - until now!  Here's a before pic:

It didn't fit-in with the rest of the room, so it got 3 coats of white paint, leftover from painting  the room.  The footrest was covered with red linoleum, so I removed the metal edge using a screwdriver, taped it off, and spray painted it with hammered gray - also a leftover from a previous project, and reused the same edge. I must confess, though.  One of the screws would not come off, so I had to get out my sawsall and cut the screw.  Yay, power tools!

I finally found a use for all of those synthetic corks I had stashed away and created a design on the front of the bar. I used my hot glue gun and a whole bunch of glue sticks:

The entire design took over 180 corks!

Then there was the top of the bar that was covered with the same red linoleum that I mentioned earlier:

My solution?  Vinyl Floor tiles!  Eight of them at 89 cents each.

A utility knife to cut, peel, and stick!

Some blue tape and caulk to finish the edge:

A complete transformation:

I did have to buy new caulk, since the tube I had was dried-out. 

Ten dollars later, I have this:

Time for cocktails!

If you've found another creative way to use vinyl tiles or synthetic wine corks, I'd love to hear about it.  

Feel free to share, pin, and follow - Have a great week!