DIY Wine Cork Wall

I am happy to say that I have finally got the wine cork project done.  It took me 6 days to do this with working about 4 to 5 hours each day.  I love the way it turned out. 

When I first started this project I wasn't sure that I would have the patience to get it done.  There were a few times when I wanted to quit.

I am glad that I stuck with it and got it completed.

Here is how it look with the bar stools.  I still need to do some decorating on the bar area.

Here is the before picture.

Our basement has a curved wall next to the bar which I painted dark brown like the wall on the left side of the picture.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this wall so I didn't paint it.  My first thought was to use stone veneer.  My second thought was to use tile.  I decided against both since it would require some tricky cutting around the corbels and I wasn't sure how they would work on the curved wall.  My next thought was to do some kind of a faux treatment with drywall joint compound.  I scratched that I idea since I wanted something that stood out. That's when I saw my large jar of wine corks.  You can see them in the above picture on the right side of the bar counter top.

My next dilemma was how cut the corks in half.  I wanted a flat surface for the corks and it would give my twice as many to use.  My hubby told me to use the utility knife but it didn't cut it cleanly and it was time consuming.  A bright idea came to me, use the scroll saw.  So I lugged the saw into the house since the garage is too cold to work in.

Here is where I cut the corks in half.  I had to be careful and not cut any fingers off.  I turned the speed down and concentrated on what I was doing.  Once I figured out how to hold the corks it went quickly.

Here is how I started out doing the wall.  I used hot glue to attach them to the wall.  I didn't get that far the first day as I was figuring out how to do the pattern.  Once I got the hang of it the project went much smoother.

Here is the progress at the end of the third day.

Now this looked like a good stopping point if I wanted to. I thought about quitting but I figured that if I came this far I should just finish it.

Here is the progress after 5 days.

I would have had it completed on the fifth day but the previous day I had cut my left thumb twice with the utility knife and I had to quit since it was hurting pretty bad.  I was surprised that I had gotten this far with the injury to my thumb.

Now I can get the rest of the room done since we finally got the furniture delivered a few weeks ago.

Linking with
The Painted Hinge
Between Naps on the Porch