Home: Conservatory Renovation

Once again I have neglected my blogging duties, but I swear it is with good reason!

Arjan and I were in York for a couple of weeks whilst my parents were in the USA, house/brother sitting. I had a few chores and little projects I wanted to do whilst I was there, a bit of spring cleaning etc and one of those was tackling the conservatory.
What was once our childhood playroom had become a dumping ground for anything and everything that couldn't go somewhere else in the house. Arjan managed to convince my brothers to help out and after two days and three trips to the dump they had the room clear.
With so much new space, the boys started thinking and after quickly disregarding the idea of digging up the floor to make a pool, they began obsessing over having a bar as a surprise for my parents to come home to .
I'll admit, I was sceptical at first, but they started checking out Ebay, Freecycle and Gumtree for bars or materials with which they could build one and quickly struck gold.
We found the bar on Ebay, it was filthy and looked a little past its best, but overall structurally sound. After a quick haggle we arranged to collect it that day for the meagre price of £10 and a dozen eggs (fresh from our chickens).
Here is what it looked like when we got it home:

It was ridiculously huge! There was a hinge at either end and it opened up to have three sides, all with their own shelves and compartments and special little features, we found old peanuts, empty glasses and a price list still inside.

First we removed the side pieces and sawed the main part down the side of one of the shelves, it was just too big to keep it all. Then we pealed off all of the vinyl coating and filled any holes with wood putty before sanding it all down and painting it.

As you can see in these pictures, the old decor was a little… tired, so we couldn't just make this shiny new bar and not spruce up the room it would be staying in!
So we sanded and primed and painted for days and eventually got the room together the evening before they were due home. There are still some finishing touches left to do, some furniture to replace and the flooring has been scheduled for a couple of weeks time, but we are pretty darn proud of what we accomplished in that time and my parent's love it.

This trolley was bought incase we couldn't find a bar, I think Arjan and I will take it when we get a place.

The cats aren't sure what to make of it.

I will be back posting regularly from now on (I say that every time!) and will have some more DIY bits to come shortly so stay tuned.