Bar Cabinet and Champagne Cocktails
Since it is New Year’s Eve, I’ve decided to show you our liquor cabinet and give you some ideas for yummy champagne cocktails.
I believe I’ve shown you this cabinet before here. We purchased it for $100 at an estate sale and I’m so glad we did. Now that the floors are refinished I can finally start arranging the furniture in the house, can’t wait to get interior design services! Yay furniture.
The bar cabinet fits perfectly in this nook in the dining room. We have a lamp on it at the moment but I don’t think it will be there permanently. It was a last minute addition to hang the chandelier in the room so the lamp was a practical addition to the room.
On top of the cabinet, I have my collection of jars. They aren’t filled or arranged yet but they will fill up with time I’m sure. I’d like to put my punch bowl up here and put the jars in the Den but the den isn’t quite to that point yet and the punch bowl is all packed up still so jars it is.
The outside of the cabinet is this beautiful burl veneer.
And the inside is a gorgeous maple.
Lots of mirrors and frankly, lots of booze. We are still drinking the leftovers from our wedding – 2 years later! I’d like to get to the point where the wine can hang out on this bottom shelf but for now…it’s still filled with more liquor –
This odd-looking contraption is called a Chandelier and the glasses are called Stagen which is german for Pipe. When Stefan and I traveled to germany, we went out into the suburbs of Köln (Cologne) to visit this Brauhaus. It was our favorite beer of the trip. Kölsh style beers are always served in these little 0.2 L glasses and each one typically costs 1 Euro. They mark on your coaster how many you’ve had and the waiter comes around with the chandeliers filled with glasses to serve you. We served Riesdorf Kölsh at the wedding and ordered the glasses and this chandelier. I’d like to display the chandelier better. It is a great centerpiece with flowers in each of the little glasses but for now, it is in the cabinet.
Stagen –
I mentioned Champagne Cocktails. I love me some Champagne Cocktails. Lets start with a Sarah Specialty – the Poinsettia. We served these as the signature drink at our wedding.
Sarah’s Poinsettia
1oz Cranberry Juice
1oz Triple Sec
1.5oz Good Quality Vodka (Optional)
Fill glass with Champagne
Squeeze of Lime
Garnish with Orange Twist
My second favorite Champagne cocktail is a punch. List most punches, this one involves a lot of throwing things in the bowl until it tastes good
Christmas Champagne Punch
1 bottle Champagne
1 cup Cranberry Juice
1 litre fruit flavored seltzer or Raspberry Ginger Ale
1/2 contaner of frozen strawberries in sugar
Add fresh cranberries and Orange slices for garnish
top with an ice block frozen in a jello mold
For our Christmas party, I found this great silicone snowflake mold and made some awesome ice cubes. I tossed some frozen strawberries and cranberries in the mold, topped with water, and threw it either in the freezer or outside until frozen. Super cute and easy!
If Gin is your Liquor of choice, try a French 75
French 75
1.5 oz Gin
1 oz Contreau
1 oz lime juice
Champagne
lime garnish
This is basically alcohol with more alcohol as a mixer…dangerous and delicious.
I hope you all have a festive, safe, and happy new year!
Sarah
The floors are re-finished!
We have an awesome floor guy. He only took about 4 hours to do about 3/4 of the first floor and half the second floor as well as the stairs between them, after which I realised that adding residential flooring doesn’t expend a lot of your time. He then came back a week later and finished them off with a final coat of polyurethane.Â
We did a bunch of patching the floors including a large patch in the den and thankfully I had the raimondi tile leveling system.
Some Before and Afters
2nd Floor Hallway Before
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2nd Floor Hallway After
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Den Before
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Den After
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Radiator Burns in Piano Room Before
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Radiator Burns in Piano Room After
Some In-Progress
I was only able to snap a few pictures so-as not to get in the way of the sanders. This is the entryway from the front door. It is all sanded and being vacuumed when this picture was taken.
This was the view into the hallway leading to the entry ahead and the dining room on the left. They started with the big sander and then went around with an edger to finish things off.
And if I peeked into the Dining room,
Patches after refinishing
And if you’re wondering how the patches look, here’s a sampling.
I am soooo happy about the floors. There are still stains and marks here and there but the floors are 100 years old…they should have marks here and there! There are some tale-tell signs of a poorly trained dog in the form of dark water stains here and there but other than that, the floors are in great shape, better shape than I though they were before the refinishing.
Sarah
Painting the Piano Room: round one
So I’m not sure about this color. It just doesn’t sit right for some reason. I always wanted to do purple in this room but it just doesn’t work with the trim color and the tone of the room.
The purple I chose was Sherwin-Williams Veiled Violet.
It’s a wonderful color and I’m definitely going to end up using it upstairs in one of the bedrooms on the 3rd floor. It’s a wonderful grown-up purple with lots of grey tones.
In the piano room, however, it just isn’t quite right.
I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with that mantle. I need some sort of faux fireplace thing but it’s a tough problem. I think I’m going to just put a couple coats of chalkboard paint up initially. I’ve seen some cute chalkboard fireplaces and it will be a quick fix until I can come up with something more clever.
Back to the paint, what do you think? Is the purple good/bad? Is my sense that it isn’t right enough to abandon veiled violet and find a new color? A different purple or a different color? So many questions! Let me know your thoughts.
Sarah
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On my computer it looks fine, rather neutral. When the room is decorated I think it will integrate.
Painting the Dining Room
If you follow my on Instagram you probably saw some pictures of the dining room go by. I painted the dining room with the help of https://indexpainting.com.au/ and it looks fantastic! We used every last drop of one quart of Martha Steward Mourning Dove which is a very taupe-ish green color.
It looks great in the room. It isn’t too green or too tan. It’s one of my new favorite colors though online it looks like a standard Beige. If you’re liking how my room was renovated check this Builder kew that very patiently gave us ideas and helped us making it look prettier than before.
Our Painting services company used Glidden Paint and I must say it is quite nice. You still need 2 coats (people say better paint only needs one coat but I’ve never found it to be true). The real benefit is in the cutting in. With a brush you really only need one coat whereas with the Behr paint, you really have to go over your cut-ins twice to get rid of the brush-marks. I’m a convert to the Glidden camp.
The color really is lovely with the chestnut tone of the paneling. I’m really excited about seeing these rooms come together so quickly!
Sarah
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Sheila
12/10/2013 | 6:58 pm Permalink
What about a grayer purple and a dad darker