We live in a very mod house. It was built in 1974. It looks really weird from the outside. Inside, we renovated it with IKEA kitchen and bathrooms, pale ash floors, and white walls with pops of bright color. It’s a swingin’ pad.
Unfortunately, before I met my husband I already had a house and it was full of English country furniture. This includes a lovely, massive dining set of a table with two leaves, six chairs, and a china cabinet. I adore this furniture. I adore English country. I have tried to make my furniture mesh with my husband’s ultra-mod house (he owned it for years before we met) by saying it is “Scandinavian eclectic”. Sometimes I even believe myself.
The china cabinet fits perfectly into a niche in the dining area of the great room.
We like to drink. We like to mix drinks. The kitchen, in spite of a complete gutting and re-arrangement of doors that created way more workspace than it had before the renovation, still seems to lack counter space and refrigerator space. Half the fridge seems to be full of beer, tonic water, and bottles of sparkling wine. Half of the counter space seems to be occupied by handles of liquor, crystal and metallic-edged glasses waiting to be hand washed, and cutting boards with half a lime sitting on them.
Today I was cruising Pinterest and saw a picture of a small wet bar built into a niche just like the one my china cabinet occupies, and I thought, “oh shit, that’s what we should do.” The niche backs up onto our powder room, so it wouldn’t be impossible to plumb a sink into that area, and it has an outlet for a mini-fridge. It would be convenient and mod and awesome, make the house and even more swingin’ pad, and free up lots of counter and fridge space in the kitchen.
Unfortunately (1) we are burned out on renovating and (2) I love my china cabinet too much.
Hey, this forum is supposed to be mundane and pointless.
Well, a mundane and pointless post needs a mundane and pointless reply.
You have the answer to your dilemma sitting on that counter. Have a drink.
It might not be a solution, but it might make you forget there is a problem.
Since you mention it…I’m in the middle of a renovation and just had pipes installed for my wetbar. It’s basically going to be a back bar - just a few cabinets, counter tops, and a sink. No “stand behind” area.
Can you share the Pinterest link? I need inspiration!
-D/a
My husband is completely uninterested in the idea, so I’ll leave it there.
What I hate about this situation is that hanging on to the furniture says “some day, we’ll have a different house. One I will like better.” Which doesn’t seem very altruistic of me, after we did that big renovation as a wedding present to ourselves.
You ever stop to think that you are probably producing different flavors of poop based on what you ate the day before? And you ever wonder if coprophragic individuals would gain the ability to make educated guesses of what you had for lunch yesterday, maybe as part of a sideshow act?
Why not convert the china cabinet to a mini bar? Conceal the fridge, forgo the plumbed in sink in favour of a mod ice bucket, get an icemaker maybe even? Glasses, liquor, cutting board, limes, and done, it seems to me.
I’m thinking I could make it work with a little creativity!
Sadly I think I love the china cabinet too much to chop it. Also, it has practically no usable work surface. Let me find a link to it… here it is. Possibly the most lovable china cabinet ever.
Boy, Sattua, I have to agree your china cabinet would work great as the mini-bar. Put holders in the upper paned cabinets for the glasses. Remove the drawers along the middle for the counter space, put the refrigerator behind either lower panneled door…the middle drawers could hold “bitters?” (I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about here) maybe mixes, and spoons & knives, etc. You could do it carefully and keep all removed parts if you wanted to reassemble it someday.
