Bar Cart Styling

**Yes, that is a noodle on the wall in the picture. Read until the end to find out why**

I love a good project, so when I found my parent’s old bar cart I was down for the challenge. My paternal grandmother gave it as a wedding gift to my parents 32 years ago. It had its fair share of wear and tear and eventually ended up being covered in rust and was outside ready to be trashed. I love anything with memories attached to it so I decided to try and restore it, knowing I probably wouldn’t be successful. Much to my surprise, it turned out perfect!

Restoring an Old Bar Cart

I started with scrubbing the glass, and sanding the majority of the rust off the metal. I washed it to get the excess rust off and hit up Lowe’s for some spray paint. When paining over rust you want to make sure you use a primer or a spray paint with built in primer like I did. I used Rust-Oleum Universal Gloss Pure Gold Metallic Spray Paint and Primer In One. I used a little under two cans with several thin coats. Next was the glass. The class had been chipped in several places and scratched. I knew that just cleaning it wouldn’t help much and I didn’t want to pay for custom cut glass. I found Krylon Specialty High-Gloss Silver Mirror Spray Paint, which you spray onto the back of the glass to give the glass a mirror effect. This does not cover the flaws in the glass, but makes them much less noticeable. The total cost of restoration was about $20.

Purchasing a New Bar Cart

I have found several carts similar to mine at Walmart, Target, and Amazon with the cheapest being at $77.59. Bar carts are so popular that you can really find them in any color or wood you want. Some even have hangers for your wine glasses but personally, I’d be too afraid that the cart would get bumped and they would all fall off.

**Click the photo’s description to go to each site for purchasing**

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Styling the Bar Cart

This is always my favorite part of projects. The only items I bought were the Cocktail Shaker, Bar Tool Set, and Coasters from Target. The rest were either gifts, leftover décor from our wedding, or stuff I have found and repurposed (like the glass milk jugs I scored from my parents old barn). I have tried to find similar items from Target and Amazon and linked it all below. We don’t typically have a lot of alcohol in the house so I just found a couple bottles of wine we had laying around and added them to the mix!

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As for the noodle on the wall in that first picture… that is a tradition we started. When Chris and I started dating, he cooked all kinds of meals to impress me. One of his moves was to throw a noodle on the wall, and if it stuck, that meant it was fully cooked. So we left the noodle on the wall until we moved to Huntsville and put it in a jar an brought it with us. It might be silly, but it’s a reminder of the small silly moments we share together. So now we put a noodle on the wall in every new place we live, and leave it there until we move.