Wet Bar Area Before and After of Our 80s Contemporary Home

I'm so glad you are here.  I still can't believe we bought a 1980s fixer upper but I've been so excited to get my hands on it and begin the renovations.  

With so much else going on, I knew we couldn't start with anything big like the kitchen so we began with the wet bar first.  

Here's a before..ignore all the dishes.  I like to cause myself a lot of work by packing and unpacking and packing and unpacking again.  

The wet bar area is in the dining room behind two bi-fold doors.  I knew I wanted to remove the top cabinets and add open shelving and wallpaper.  These were two of the options but then I realized these options were NOT prepasted.  Um no thanks.  

That's when I found the peel and stick at Target!

It found mine at Target.  There are a lot of beautiful options on Amazon too!  Here's a link to another one I had considered.  https://amzn.to/2G4vjX6  (affiliate link)

Making progress by removing the upper cabinets and patching the holes from the cabinet supports.  Getting the first piece of wallpaper up was pretty easy.  The corners are a little trickier but you can reposition the paper until it is right.

Once the wallpaper was up, I tackled the countertop.  Remember from the before, it was a dark black/brown marble laminate.  I looked at a few options and decided on painting the laminate with Rustoleum's Countertop coating paint.  It can be tinted to about 10 options.  I chose Putty for my color.  It most resembled the concrete look I was going for.  It's recommended that you rough up the surface of your laminate before applying.  I just used a fine grit sanding block and wiped the dust away with a damp cloth.

You can find the Rustoleum Countertop paint by clicking on the image above or you can also find it at your local home improvement store.  I will warn you the paint odor is strong so apply it on a day when you can have proper ventilation if doing it inside.

Here's a look at the finished faux concrete countertop.  I applied the paint with a foam brush and did a slight sponge technique (remember the ol' sponge painting days?!) to get some variations in the color and add depth and texture to resemble concrete.

Once the countertop was dry, I added open shelving to replace the upper cabinets.  I found two corbels at Hobby Lobby and stained a piece of pine for the shelf.  Most of Hobby Lobby's corbels are decorative so we did reinforce the shelf to help hold the weight.

Ready to see it all finished?!  

One of my favorite thrift store finds is the set of Blue Willow double old fashioned glasses.  The work well with the blue and white graphic wallpaper.

It feels good to have at least a small area of this 80s home updated and finished.  We are almost finished with a couple more rooms and will begin the big renovation on the kitchen in February!

Pin it so you don't forget it!! :)

Thanks for following along!  We can't wait to have it finished and share it with you!

Blessings!

Angie