My father has been a Lutheran pastor for nearly 25 years. It is customary in this profession to move around every ten years or so to keep congregations from getting stale. These days you can find him on St Paul’s east side at Arlington Hills Lutheran Church (or with my mother at any of the many great pubs in St Paul). I sometimes think they have more fun than I do. We’ll get picture text messages from them while they’re at places like The Muddy Pig, W.A. Frost or Great Waters. What can I say? They know how to enjoy life. Back to the story… Before moving to St Paul, Dad was a pastor in rural central Minnesota. They lived in a parsonage (home owned by the church reserved for the pastor's family). And in that parsonage was a garage. And in that garage was a workbench. For the first eight or nine years they lived there I never knew that the workbench was actually an altar. The decorative side always faced the wall since the back had a door on it and inside they would keep gardening tools and what have you. Well, the altar must have been removed from one of the old country churches that are constantly closing up all over the Midwest. No one really knows how long it was sitting in the garage but I really wanted it. Dad asked around and no one seemed to know where it came from or whether it was of any sigificance to anyone so he said I could have it. I saw lots of potential in this beat up old grubby workbench.
The first thing we had to do was evict all the tenants that resided in the altar. Yep, it seems between the frame and the decorative crown molding lived a family of mice. Once that problem was eliminated we loaded it up in dad’s truck. I got it home and into our garage and quickly got to work. Shows like Mythbusters and Smash Lab are successful because people like to destroy things and see things getting destroyed. This was no exception. I had a lot of fun disassembling this little gem. Crowbars, hammers, flying nails, yay! However, once I got it all apart the fun stopped and the “work” began. I quickly got burned out and neglected the project. I found it was too hard to sand all the intricate decorative pieces that adorned the front of the altar. I gave up and pursued other interests. Eventually I returned and decided it might be easier to sand if I removed all the pieces. So I did just that. The wood was old and brittle and some of the parts broke. Frustrated again! This pile of lumber nearly became firewood. But since I wanted the end result to be rugged and antiqued I decided to plug away. I bought a dowling jig and slowly put Humpty Dumpty back together. Slowly I worked about an hour a month. We’re talking glacial pace. Then all of a sudden I got the urge to step it up and finish it. My brother comes to town once, sometimes twice, a year and he was coming soon! I decided in early December that I would finish it by the time he got here January 10th.
I worked and worked and worked until finally I got everything sanded, everything broken put back together, every rotten board replaced, everything stained and everything reassembled. I did it; I got it finished literally the night before he flew in. And by finished I mean I now had a nice new piece of furniture to grace our living/dining room. It was pretty and it worked too. Sort of. The problem was that I had to fill a cooler with ice and place the kegs in it to keep them cool. Not difficult but a pain in the kiester. In addition to that, when beer warms up, the carbonation comes out of solution (un-dissolves?). So the lines between the keg and the tap (uncooled) ended up filling with foam. That’s all that would come of the tap for a few seconds. Every time you’d pour a beer you’d get a glass full of foam. Becasue of this I didn't use it very often. It wasn't much more than a piece of art that was nice to look at.
What I had envisioned all along was a kegerator so to speak. A refrigerated altar that dispenses kegged beer. Am I going to Hell? Perhaps. After three months of just admiring my bar, I went back to work. I framed up the inside of the altar kinda like you would do if you were finishing a basement. Next, I applied quarter inch plywood for a nice smooth interior. Using Liquid Nails I adhered 1” foam insulation to the plywood and finally adhered pieces of FRP to the foam. Let me tell you this was no easy chore. FRP stands for Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic and it is very hard to cut. Also fiberglass is very itchy and you don’t want to breathe the dust. I ended up using my dad’s Dremel with a cut-off wheel to cut it. I wore gloves, long sleeves, a mask, safety glasses and took my work outside. This seemed to work well and it got me outside one nice afternoon. Once the FRP was applied I caulked the corners with white caulk and now I have a nice waterproof and easy-to-clean interior. I did the same to the bar top and it actually insulates very well.
Of course at this point all I have is a glorified cooler. I’ve been holding on to my old dorm fridge for use on the altar bar and it was time to install it. It wasn’t hard to remove from the original fridge and not very hard to reinstall on the new altar either. It did annoy me a little that I had to cut a big (4” x 4”) hole in the side but I had no choice. It doesn’t cool as well as I’d like and I’m sure it’s not efficient but it does the trick. Perhaps I can find another old fridge and put another one on the other side. Right now it cools to 39-42 degrees which is good enough. Can’t wait to see my electrical bill. Overall, I am quite pleased with how it turned out. And my wife is pleased since I did all this most recent work in our dining room! Running up and down between the garage and dining room... sawdust and tools everywhere... but I digress. I got home from work yesterday and poured myself a beer from my own living room. It was nice.
That being said, I am sure I will continue to play around with this project. I would like a bigger bar top, I’d like to improve refrigeration, add another draft tower, etc. I am fully resigned to the fact that it may never be truly completed. Pictures of the project can be found HERE.
Cheers!
2 comments:
That looks awesome!!
Thanks Eric, it's nice to be done.
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