While I was working on my 2020 lockdown project, my husband was working on his: he restored the old wine barrel we inherited from my uncle to make a piece of furniture for our terrace.
My husband had a very specific idea about what to make of it, carefully planned in weeks of thinking. He wanted to make a stand for our grill, with a storage compartment, wheels to move the barrel around and also a tray for dishes.
The full project took him three full weekends of work: we spent almost all daylight hours of our Saturdays and Sundays in our garage, since with the pandemic restrictions we could go nowhere else.
Before and after
The first task was the longest for sure: sanding. Our barrel needed a strong sanding of all its surface: it rested for years in an abandoned wine cellar, among dirt and moisture, so we took our time to clean the wood properly. My husband began the work, then I finished it with care and patience. And this was to be done outside but even inside the barrel! Also the metal hoops needed sanding and cleaning: you can easily imagine the mess on our workshop floor!
About the metal hoops, we removed them one by one for a thoughroughly cleaning of the wood. Cleaning the staves so the traces of the hoops were not visible on the wooden surface was a long tedious task, that I took particular care to accomplish. Removing the hoops was necessary also for the next part of the project.
We began with the upper half of the barrel: when all the upper hoops were removed and the wood was smooth and even, my husband glued together all the wooden staves. Then, we did the same for the lower half.
It was not an easy task, but we needed the barrel to be strong and stable before cutting a door.
With all the staves glued in place, my husband procedeed with the cutting of the door. Also this task was hard because we had to cut the metal hoops as well. So we decided to screw them to the barrel to keep them in place. After screwing the hoops, we cut them where the door cuts were and sanded a little to make the cuts smooth.
Then we had to add a hinge to open. We chose to add just one, even though we feared it could be not enough strong to hold the door’s weight, otherwise opening a curved door would have been quite impossible. With a sufficiently strong steel hinge, though, we could drop our worries: the mechanism worked well enough.
My husband, careful a planner as he always is, also added a couple of magnets to help the door stay closed. The barrel had also an original hole, which received a cork to become the handle.
After the door, we also added an inner shelf. Measuring the size of it was harder than the making itself, with such a small space to work inside. In the end, we were able to cut a good-fitting shelf to be positioned it inside the barrel and screwed to the staves.
The door was not complete, though.
My husband planned an additional shelf that could be stowed away in the inner side of the door and put out in position when needed, to support dishes and cooking stuff.
Also, this affected the size and shape of the other fixed shelf inside the barrel, that had to leave room for the foldable shelf when the door was closed.
Here we added another couple of magnets, so the shelf can stay fixed in its position when not in use, so there’s not risk of it dangling when opening the door.
And when the shelf was in use, it needed a hook to keep it open and flat, strong enough to support weight. This mechanism gave us headaches while planning it, trying various solutions before coming to one that worked well. Even when our hands were not on the project, our brains struggled to think of a good solution. We discussed long, came up with several ideas, none of which good enough. Rummaging through our scrap materials in the workshop gave us the illumination: a hook!
My personal tip
Store away all the tools and materials you happen to find, even small leftovers: you never know when they could come in handy.
Finally, the easiest and most relaxing part of this project: painting.
A warm sunny day was our companion for the final weekend we dedicated to this restoration.
We prefer painting in the open, rather than in our basement workshop: we love staying in the open air, moreover it’s better handling paint or resin or potentially toxic materials outside. yes, we usually prefer water-based painting, but what do they say? Better safe than sorry!
And we are lucky enough to have a terrace that has room enough for our projects! That terrace saved our two-months lockdown!
After two layers of paint, the restoration of my uncle’s old wine barrel was complete! Our good companion during three lockdown weekends in Spring 2020.
Did I already say my husband is a creative engineer and crafter? Do you agree? Tell us in the comments!
