Our rustic modern bar reveal!!

I have posted about our toy room/ loft down in our basement and am still planning on showing you little by little how our basement came to be. But for today, the bar! We finished our basement (a big open dusty concrete slab) about 2 years ago. I have always loved modern design but for a basement with one window I wanted it to feel modern but also cozy and warm. I love a good juxtaposition in design. For this space, rough sawn wood siding on the wall, barn beams and re purposed mirror would be in stark contrast to some modern touches, fancy mirrored furniture pieces and crystal cut looking pendants. 

You can see the rough sawn pine wood paneling in the background which extends throughout the basement. This paneling came to us only primed and it was not a good "natural" color of primer. Sometimes the batches can come in looking like a white grayish washed wood and it is cool! In our case, it was clear we needed to stain it. I think we sat in Sherwin Williams mixing stains for hours until we got one I liked. I wanted it to be warm, rustic looking and contrast well with the grayish wood looking tile plank flooring. The paint on the main walls is a warm white color called "Dujour" as I wanted the space to feel as open as it could and allow for some brightness and the illusion of taller ceilings.

The tile planks were a newer concept at the time we finished our basement. I have seen more selection and more flooring and tile places that are carrying them now. It's a great product option for places like a basement or bathroom that can get wet. It also happens to be easier to clean than wood and shows less foot traffic than! It gives you the look of wood plank floors but much more practical for spaces like this! It comes in a variety of wood stain looking colors too. 

The counter top is granite, "Bianco Antico". It was the most amazing find I think I had for this basement. This is the kind of granite that is so ornate and detailed it may be a little much for an everyday kitchen, but it was perfect for a bar! It has so much variation and detail and I love that the white background is a stark white and brightens up the bar in contrast to the dark cabinets!

I am also still in love with these lighting finds. These pendants came from an Etsy Shop called Lamp Goods. She has all kinds of glass goods and some very cool re purposed mason jar pendants, vintage and industrial lighting. She is also very sweet and great to work with and most importantly, very affordable. 

The layout of the bar was designed by GB Design. I could handle picking out and coordinating all the materials but there is no way I could have come up with the layout! She did an amazing job. I love the oversized doors and the open display space for wine, liquor and glassware! The cabinetry is a charcoal gray/brown finish and it was one of the first things I picked out. I loved the striped look of the material as it gave it some variation of color making it appear softer and blend with the neutral color pallet I wanted. The brand is Kitchen Craft "Soho" and the color is "Chillagoe."

The mirror is a true labor of love! I could not have done it without the help of Dana's Aunt Grace. We sifted through the salvage yard and she helped me put dimensions and logic to the vision in my head! A hard job, just ask my husband and our contractors!! I love an old mirrored backdrop to a bar though. I mean you can't feel like you are at an old pub without a mirror. Locally, the place to go is Doc's Architectural Salvage near downtown. He is a true self proclaimed "Junk Man" and he has way more cool finds than you could sift through in a day's time. I had seen a design on Etsy that I semi modeled it after but the look was ultimately gonna be up to what we found and how it could fit together. 

Basically what we found was four flat pieces of wood to form the frame around the mirror and then matching pillars to go on each side. And then for more dimension and interest we applied corbels and trim to die into the ledge that you see at the top. 

Below is one of the shelves at Doc's where we started our hunt for cool salvaged corbels! And yes, they were all that chippy, layered in lead paint so we were aware this was gonna be a process! Grace, bless her heart, decided that I could not do the stripping at my house because of the lead paint and kiddies and she offered to do it in her garage! 

This is a shot of the piles of salvaged pillars. This one is similar to the one we used. We had to find two for each side that matched which kind of determined what they would look like and of course needed one that would work with the scale of the mirror. 

I wish I had more photos of the process but this was a project pre- blogging so the best I can do is describe it. This angle of photo gives you a clearer picture of how all the pieces came together. The pieces were stripped of all the chipped paint down to raw and in many cases discolored wood. I painted/stained the wood using several shades of gray and white paint and beige stain to give it the vintage look with fresh paint! 

In this shot below you can see more of the shading that I had to do to make it look natural. I painted a very thin watered down layer over the raw wood with the white paint we used as the wall color in the basement. Then I rubbed off some paint on the corners and elsewhere to make it appear worn. I shaded the corners and crevices with a dark charcoal gray paint that we used on all the doors down in the basement. I also used a beige stain glaze to go over some of the white areas to make the white color appear weathered. There is nothing more therapeutic than painting and trying to make it look flawed:)

Below is a shot of what we used as the base of the pillars so that is had something official to sit on at the counter top. 

Here is how it turned out when finished!

The smokey vintage looking mirror was a labor of Dana's Aunt Grace. When we went to price this glass to order it was crazy expensive! Plus the look of the aging was much more controlled in the mirrors that are factory done, which is not as cool in my opinion. Grace looked up how to age a mirror on the Internet and I met her one day to play with muriatic acid and spray paint in her garage using some test pieces of glass!:) That is a messy and toxic job! She had the large mirror we ended up using as our final product. It was an old mirror she had when she used to do window displays in her retail days. It turned out perfectly imperfect! It is dark and moody and truly unique!

My bar stools are from World Market! They were a welcomed bargain to this bar! When you are buying four bar stools, let that not be your splurge or you could be spending a lot of money on seating! They went perfect with the stain on the paneling which was not exactly planned but turned out great!

My corbels were a steal from Home Depot! They are black wrought iron and have some fun detail with a little modern twist!

I had to add this photo as I think it is one of my husband's fav things (well, except for that TV on the wall and the beer fridge)! The ol' metal rhino head beer opener! A gift from Santa in his stocking the winter after we finished the bar:)

This side area is a nook off to the right of the bar to house the fridge, microwave and espresso machine. All the convenience stuff you don't necessarily want to be part of the look of the bar. 

A bar you love makes the wine far better...

Cheers! {Laura}