Bar fun, bar none

I've had to wait a few days to publish this post for a few reasons:

1. Stephen was OOT and I wanted him to be surprised
2. It took me a few days to actually acquire the item
3. I wanted to decorate around the item before I posted pictures

What's this "item" I am talking about, you ask? It's none other than a BAR!

As you can probably guess by reading my blog, we've gone a little OOC on acquiring a fully stocked bar. I have seen Stephen looking at bars for a few months now. Truthfully, we entertain a lot, and we really did have a need for one.

Last Saturday, Mrs. Chen and I decided to take a leisurely stroll through Crate & Barrel (= naughty). While we were there, I spotted a few bars that I thought were really awesome. To my surprise, Stephen agreed to go look at them the next day. We found one we both liked, but decided not to buy it.

Well, Stephen decided not to buy it.

I decided to buy it and surprise him when he got back from PA for work that week. I couldn't think of anything better to use all those C&B gift cards on that we got from the wedding.

Once Stephen left on Wednesday, I enlisted the help of the lovely Mrs. Chen and her Honda Fit to pick up the bar. I called the Oak Brook store for the box measurements and found out that I would have to buy it from the C&B in Geneva because they didn't have it in stock.

I gave the measurements to Mrs. Chen and she measured her car to make sure it would fit.

Wednesday Night

It's around 6:30 and we've made the trek all the way out to Geneva to pick up the bar. As soon as Mrs. Chen starts backing the Fit up to the loading dock, the loading guy frowns and says there is no way it will fit. I tell him that I called ahead for the measurements to make sure it would fit in the Fit, so we should be fine.

Stupid Oak Brook store and their incorrect measurements.

Never ones to leave on a sad note, Mrs. Chen and I head off to CPK for some pizza, and more importantly, drinks (to drown our sorrows, of course).

Thursday Night

Since we had to pick up the bar ASAP, Mrs. Chen and I again made the trek to Geneva (yawn) after work. But first, we had to stop in Naperville to grab her mom's minivan. I will swear up and down that I will never get a minivan, but thank goodness for one in this case.


After spending about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to take out the back seats, we were off (again)!

This time, the bar fit right in (thank G because I don't think I could handle another post-work trip to Geneva). We stopped for some soup at Corner Bakery and made the 45 minute trek back to the DG.


This is where it starts to get interesting. As we open up the van, we take a deep breath as we realize just how stinking huge this box is. And then we realize how heavy it is when we can't even get our fingers under the box to lift it out. I believe Mrs. Chen said something to the effect of, "But the Crate & Barrel guy made this look so easy!"

With no other choice but to make fun of our situation, this is when the constant flow of laughter begins. By the time we got the thing to the elevator (which took about 20 minutes of rearranging, pushing, and pulling through too-small doors and hallways), I felt like I had just ran a triathlon.



Once we got upstairs, it was almost 10PM and I realized that we would have to calm down on the laughing since my building is mostly senior citizens. Also realizing that this would be darn near impossible, I decided to run down the hallway before I completely lost it. Apparently, Mrs. Chen wasn't expecting my sudden outburst of activity, as evidenced by the constant almost-stifled giggling that is present in the video below:

And also maybe the fact that I ran the box into the wall at the end.

No longer able to contain our laughing, we run inside and practically fall on the floor in tears. This blurry picture is attempting to show just how hard Mrs. Chen was laughing.


Once we pulled ourselves together (10 minutes later), we started to unwrap the bar.
Thankfully, 95% of the cabinet was already assembled, so the only thing we really had to do was put on the legs. Of course, if it hadn't been assembled, we probably could have fit it in Mrs. Chen's car in the first place. But I digress.

The only other thing we had to do was to decide where to put the shelves. While Mrs. Chen was putting the pegs in the holes, she asked for a hammer so she could fully insert them. Unfortunately, the hammers are in the depths of the 2nd bedroom renovation pile, so I was forced to give her one of my platform shoes to hammer them in.


It worked like a charm. And I now have further justification to buy more shoes.


So, without further ado, I present our bar. Please come over and try it out!


(P.S. - you're impressed by my mad mirror-hanging skills, aren't you? I did that ALL BY MYSELF. You try hanging 6 mirrors all level with exactly 1 inch between them and no hanging hardware on the mirror!)

(P.P.S. - Stephen loves the bar :) )