I finally cracked down and committed to converting our formal dining room, which we never used it as, into a home bar. Even further, over the past few months, I decided to incorporate more of my brewery into it.

Last year I broke down and sold my hog and picked up a 14 gallon Ss Brewtech Unitank – essentially traded my chrome for stainless steel. Of course I get the added piece of mind from my wife for my safety.

It took me a bit to decide on size and style, and ended up with a Unitank and Glycol Chiller. If you haven’t followed me on social media, check back at a few Instagram posts I made on the chiller – it will be under my older homebrew posts (@tapthishomebrew), but I use it in-line to cool my boiling wort before pitching yeast. I have since moved my social media posts over to @tapthisbrewing.

I had been just staring at the Unitank for months, thinking its going to waste. At this point I haven’t brewed since January, and that was a kitchen sink brew, so did it really count?

I will spare the photo of the room before I started, but we all have a junk drawer, right. This formal dining room was our hiding spot for the miscellaneous. After clearing the room out, I ended up with what we called the “beach room”. Decorated as such, with a comfortable ambiance, it was time to let the tides wash it away.

The popcorn ceiling and hi-lo carpet had to go!

Work began on the demo with the ceiling first. Scraping the ceiling, texturing, and painting. Figured I’d leave the carpet until last so I can make all the mess possible.

After painting, I pulled up the carpet and laid down the new flooring (stain & seal). In my mind, I had the Lowe’s hardware store flooring, but ended up with something a bit different. What should’ve been grey concrete with a slight sheen, ended up as a blue-grey stained floor that still showed some carpet glue lines (the acid wash didn’t work out well).

You can see in the photo that I outlined in painters tape where my equipment was going to be. Painters tape is stronger than I thought it was supposed to be, oops. It pulled up the stain/seal and left some noticeable lines. Good thing I was going for an industrial look and having it be rough and raw added to the feel.

My overall design blends 1920s to 1940s industrial, mixing in some black iron look and rough woods. I added a new electrical circuit to better handle all my equipment and gave it a similar look with conduit outside the wall. I was happy with my transition from our living room flooring to the bar area – it came out pretty clean.

And finally, it was time to start bring my equipment in. I pulled in my kegerator (holds 3 corney kegs) and chest freezer (former fermentor) and planned my bar build. To start I needed to convert my fermenter into a keezer (kegerator/freezer conversion), so I could increase my service to 6 taps. But, why not go for 7 (possible).

In order to fit 4 kegs in my keezer, I need to raise the lid at least 10 inches to alow for hoses and such. Go big or go home, I went with a 2×12 for the collar, which brings my total height to just about bar height. Now, reading several posts online, I couldn’t find a good definitive on the height, nor much real input on a 12″ collar. So, I decided to go for it. I began my build by cutting the boards to outline my freezer, and left the front for last. I decided (and read some posts) that the 12″ height addition would be problematic for lifting kegs out and especially in, when filled.

I looked all over for options, but didn’t come across any. I came up with the design to have a flip down front. Basically a 12″ collar on the sides and rear, then a 3″ collar on the front with a ~9″ flip down collar. It came out perfect! I finished it off it mold-resistant paint, gap seals, hinges, and latches to keep it shut.

Next steps (coming soon) is to mount it to the freezer and take care of the finishing touches.

…then its onto the bar build.