Rolling Bar Refactor Project

When i moved into my house there was a rolling bar (for drinks) made out of plywood in the basement. This bar belonged to our old neighbor Gene. The bar design was, to be frank, hideous. It had a padded front with a cheap vinyl pillow look. The top of the bar used linoleum tiles as a surface, again hideous and tacky.

the overall shape of the bar and the simple build materials of plywood make it intriguing enough to put a new design spin on it.

Some ideas for it:

• Destroy it, build something smaller which could be brought outside the house. Current one is NOT going to be moveable from the basement. It's stuck there in its current form
• Find affordable wood paneling, whether surfaced or requiring stain or paint but giving texture, but also sustaining durability against bumps and kicks.
• Wainscoting surface to part of it
• Add an emblem or crest to it, with hand painted details. Something CNC milled would be cool
• Give it an old mahogany milled wood look using layers of trim pieces overlayed. Try to make the bar look like an actual wooden bar.
• Play with how the light would hit it
• Play with materials and paints. Make sure if it's painted to do so with a consideration of ventilating the area.
• Go for the multi-materials look to give it a “beach” feel or industrial look. This would be added more pieces of trim but perhaps including some corrugated steel and maybe some other adornments that give it that look. I think this could be done tastefully and minimally. Probably would have the lighter stain OR the much darker stain or a combination.
• Turn it into a sort of “news desk” to maybe make it work as a TV interviewer desk. This doesn't preclude it from still working as a bar and maybe the design could work as a bit of a hybrid but it means considering more colors or a sleek look.
• Just as an exercise look at going full art deco on this project. Why? Because Art Deco and that's all that needs to be said.
• Teak wood reclaimed look - Menards teak tiles

A couple other note worth mentioning in this project. So it would be pretty cool to make this work as an actual bar. Right now the shelving in it, isn't conducive to holding things securely, which you need in the case of a rolling object. you can't be having your bottles and classes falling off from inertia. So the inside area needs some adjustments there to hold items. that's a given.

Another thing is it needs some chairs, either for the front or the back. And putting some bartop arcade units on it would be awesome as well. But in that case, you're going to want to have power accessible on the bar. Which means finding a power unit that can be on the bar but not able to be destroyed by spilled drinks.

If the bar becomes used as a sort of news desk. You're going to want to have a monitor type thing added to it. Now this may be as easy as having a little tablet stand, but might be cool to have an actual mini monitor set up. A monitor would give the ability to plug in whatever source. And if there's a case of presenting and wanting to display information at high framerate, that little monitor could be awesome.

As stated earlier, the current surface is a set of old linoleum tiles. They are adhered to the top but very easily removed. The top of a bar should be something of a water resistant material. so I understand the reasoning there. But there are a lot of cool options now along the same vein that would bring it up to modern look. And a design could be picked for better style longevity.

Going with a neutral dark color like a dark gray, muted cobalt could be good. Might be good to have a sheen on it, BUT it might also be better to have it not reflect much if it were to be used as part of a news desk setup where a green screen could reflect off it. You'll want to not have reflections in that case.

The current wheels on it are not great. They still roll though. Depending on how much weight is added to the bar, might be a good idea to upgrade the wheels. In doing so it may raise the height and have to be modded further on the footing of it to continue to shroud the wheels.