Out With the Old, In With the…Old

The rustic pine bar in the corner of the bonus room, circa April, 2007

I took the liberty of rearranging our formal living room, the least-used room in our house since we are not very formal, after I put away the Christmas decorations and vacuumed up the infinity of pine needles that stayed behind.  And suddenly, on this day of all days, my vacuum cleaner decided to not work.  That was awesome.  I had to jiggle it and bonk it and kick it until it wheezed back to life, and I will deal with it another day.

We have a rustic pine bar with seating for two that I assembled with my own hands right after we got married.  I had ordered it from the Sears catalog, just like in olden days, because we had a bonus room in our old house in Northridge that just begged for a bar to service the parties we had several times a year.  In our new house, it really didn’t have a place.  We never throw parties because we’re too far away from many of our friends, and even if we did throw a party it would be for the kids and there wouldn’t be much mingling around a bar.  I had stuck the bar into the corner of our little-used living room and considered selling it, although I didn’t have my heart in that decision because even though it wasn’t expensive, I’ve always loved it and I can see a time in the future when it will come in handy again.

During her annual Christmas visit my mother in law suggested I put it in front of the bay window.  This was an idea that had never occurred to me.  Curious, I put towels under the bottom edges and had Kyle help me push it into place.  Sure enough, it was perfect, and now I love the bar again in its new place and I will fill it with booze and wine and glasses and even if I use it for only a party of two or three, that will be enough.

Here are the before and after pictures, starting from the bay window and rotating clockwise.

BEFORE:

You can see the bar in the photo above, behind Stewart’s right shoulder.  There’s even wine on top, a gift from him to me.  He also gave me two pounds of coffee and a candle.  These three items are yearly staples.

AFTER:

That’s the “toy room” in the space beyond.  It’s really a formal dining room but you can how that worked out.

I plan to get a small table and a lamp, or maybe a standing reading lamp, to go next to the love seat.  It’s the perfect little reading nook, especially for chilly nights with a fire crackling in the fireplace.  And some wine from the bar!

Here are some more pictures from Christmas morning just for fun:

His Christmas Eve pajamas are a little big this year.  At least they’ll last a while!