Espresso bar: Finished.

I have no idea why I never got around to, well, posting about having finished our espresso bar. We spent a couple months building it. Now complete, it looks pretty cool. Like our floating wall last year, basically exactly what we had envisioned.

Having gone from K's idea of building an inset coffee bar in the wall separating our kitchen (original house) and dining-slash-living room (contemporary addition) to a ginormous hole in our wall to a fully-functional espresso bar complete with a ton of IKEA hacking has been pretty cool. We've been enjoying it since I guess about the last five months.

Functionally, even without the to-be-restored La Pavoni Pub V gracing the countertop, it's a dream. It also opened up a bunch of counter space in the limited amount we have in the kitchen.

Between installing the granite countertop and finishing the construction, we had to take care of the final task: installing the panels, open shelf, and hacked IKEA lighting. Basically, more IKEA hacking.

I started with two 20x80" Torhamn panels. Using a combination of table saw and router table I got them cut to size. There were four total: two for the inset sides and two for the back.

I wanted to psuedo-mortise and tenon the two back panels so they'd stay together better once installed. Then I cut out the hole for the electrical box and tested the fit. Good to go.

To fit the panels I used some shims and made sure everything was tight and square.

Then I globbed construction adhesive all over and stuck on the four panels. Some brad nails to keep them in place and they were installed.

Next I installed the open shelf. The puck lights then needed to be attached to the underside of that and to the cabinet above. That was all straightforward. We were on the home stretch. Also, time for more espresso!

All that was left was to get everything put in place inside the cabinets and on the shelf. Finally, we placed our kick ass Rancilio Silvia Pro and La Pavoni Zip grinder on the countertop. We were done.

We've literally used it every day, twice a day, since we finished. Except on the days we were away from home. Then we missed it, and our homemade espresso. As K has said for years, 'Not without coffee first.'

Onto our next project: the living room…