This summer's big project

Just one post a month this summer? I guess it's a lot harder to do work around the house without Friday's off and a dissertation to write. So what's been eating up all my project time this summer? A new cooler box, or as I liked to call it the worst project I've ever been dumb enough to take on.

This started so innocently. Our neighbors were moving, and offered us their outdoor bar set for a halfway decent price. A bar/cooler with six bar stools for $40. Like an idiot, I said okay.

It sat in the yard as I wondered what I had done. 

Sat and collected a shit ton of rain water. 

The bar was just a big plastic cooler they had screwed some boards to and built a shoddy bar jutting off the top. And it was on the rustiest rack of wheels I had ever seen. One day into having this crap in our yard and I was feeling pretty damn dumb. 

First supplies run

But I was pot committed at that point and with a $100 home depot card burning a hole in my pocket I thought I'd try to make the best of it. Demo'd the "bar" off, took the wheels off, and muscled this plastic piece of crap up to the deck on my own.

These looked square at least. 

Getting this piece of crap up the steps convinced me it still needed wheels.

Without the wheels it was too low for a bar, so I built a frame to attach to the bottom on casters thinking I'd want it pub table height. But with all the rain we got through May and June, that collapsed as soon as I tried to move it around. It went back on in a much shorter fashion.

I thought 30 5" cedar pickets would be enough to wrap the damn thing, either my math or the board lengths were way off b/c I needed 15 more. Thankfully they still had some out at home depot after the initial trip. For all four sides, this meant taking off junk that was screwed onto the plastic, and putting something else on to use as a contact point for the boards to get glued/screwed to.

It stopped raining and got hot as balls at this point. 

With the cedar on it's not looking too bad, and I thought hinged lids would be easy enough to make to keep it functional but also good for storage. I was thinking tile but the wife suggested peel and stick to keep the weight down, which I thought was a good suggestion.

Mitered and routered to fit a 1/4 plywood panel. 

Again, doesn't look too bad. 

Of course my math was off on that too, and I needed to order a second set of supplies. 

Bought 15, ended up needing 25. Dammit. 

For weight these are fine, but there's not as nice as real tile. 

At this point I was ready to burn the fucking thing down. But the peel and stick wasn't hard to work with once I had enough. Getting the lids aligned right to put the hinges on was an adventure too, but at that point I was beyond taking pics and just wanted to be done. Thankfully all I had left after that was a quick run of caulk to tie the thing together and it was done. I'll have to stain it in the future with the same stuff we used on the fence but that can wait. 

It's already full of crap in this picture; two coolers & a tub of outside toys.

Whew. Now that it's done I don't mind it, but that was one of the most painful projects I've done around the house. The extra storage is nice, it's holding our two coolers and a few other odds and ends, and it does actually make a halfway decent bar top with people over. I might want to epoxy over the top in the future, but that's going to wait until I build my patience back up.