Build Your Own Home Bar

With our blueprint topic (02/2006) we present a smoke-free fireplace variant with a built-in mini bar. The instructions show you step by step how to build this house bar yourself.

Straight to the blueprint:

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Even with the small furniture size (approx. 100 x 40 x 75 (W x D x H in cm)) of our house bar with integrated ethanol fireplace, a number of miters are required. They ensure that no cut edges are visible after assembly. Since it is often a long miter, the right tool and precise work are essential. The cutting of narrow boards (e.g. head boards) should be done from a considerably larger board to ensure the guiding security of the circular saw. If you dare to do this work, there is nothing standing in the way of building a unique home bar yourself !

Build your own home bar

If you have a shadow gap cutter or a corresponding machine attachment, you should opt for flat dowel connections. The required slots can be made very precisely, even on free wooden surfaces. Since the position can be corrected within the slots when gluing - within narrow limits - this is a handyman-friendly way of connecting wood. If the mentioned tool is not available, circular dowels help. That means drilling machine in the drill stand, dowel gauges and tips and extremely precise work. Corrections are not possible with round dowels. The six holes in the back panel, which are made with a good hole saw, not only serve to dissipate heat from the back panel of the fireplace, they are also very helpful when it comes to gluing the back panel to the base. So the clamp legs of the clamps can be carried out and attack directly at the glue point.

The picture above also shows how the clamps are to be positioned in order to achieve optimal glue connections. The adhesive tape does an excellent job - especially with mitres.

The cutout in the base plate for the combustion chamber tank must of course also be made with the back wall before gluing. Now that the back wall, base plate and plinth boards have been set up, the body is completed. The next step is to place the partition on the base plate and attach the partition. The partition wall and floor are screwed to the rear wall from behind, all other connections are made with flat or round dowels. The upper floor and the associated headboards are glued to the rear wall in a similar way to that of the base. The headboards later carry the flap. A helper is definitely an advantage for the last described steps.

Build the minibar yourself

Before the preparations for the frame of the fireplace begin, the door is made. This makes sense because the miter gluing of the two door panels should definitely dry overnight. The blind holes for the pot tapes and the grip hole must also be made here before gluing. Clamps are less suitable in this process because they could possibly move the miters against each other. Fixing with adhesive tape is better. However, it is important that the 90 ° angle is strictly observed. Otherwise the door will not fit into the body later. Due to the design features of the hinge cups, the rear wall in the door area must be released by 3 mm, otherwise the door would not close flush (see the construction plan: drawing of the rear wall). The pot hinges are usually accompanied by an assembly sketch for the assembly of the cross plate.

The glass holders are only glued to the flap. The distances between them and the hole diameter in the lower holder are of course only suggestions. Of course, they are based on your range of glasses. When determining the hole diameter, use the lower quarter of the glass upside down as a default. But take into account the clear height of the space under the flap, otherwise it will quickly become a glass container unintentionally.

To make it easier to insert the frame boards into the body, two horizontal boards are first glued together and the two vertical boards are fixed in the body. After curing, the prefabricated boards are glued in. Helping hands are useful when aligning.

For the fenders, the construction plan provides all the necessary information regarding their sizes, the positions of the holes and the arrangement of the aluminum angles.

Both the cutout in the base plate and in the base plate depend on the size of the combustion chamber tank. The tank itself is designed so that the intensity of the flame is infinitely adjustable. For this purpose, two slides with handle holes are moved towards each other (smaller flame) or away from each other (larger flame).

We sprayed the sheets with a special black paint that was heat-resistant up to 690 ° C. It prevents the ugly tarnishing of untreated steel sheets. The living space glaze for the body is named after the beautiful forest earth.

Source: himself is the man 2/2006