Planning Part 1: Establishing tone

Before I went to the store to look for building materials, or started sketching out ideas I thought about why do I want an English pub? What is it about the design that attracts me? Essentially, why am I building this? When I built the original pub, there were very few resources on the internet, back in 2000 I was still working on a computer with a 56k dial up modem. Broadband was a luxury item. So I did my best the old fashioned way, working with my local librarian to find books and working through my own memories of the pubs I had visited when I was in London in 1998. Today, resources are plentiful and although I haven't returned to England since 1998 and haven't been in Ireland since 2008, I had the world at my fingertips through my good friend Google.

The first thing I did was to search the internet for ideas on what would work in the english style. If you look up basement bar, you get a wide variety of pretty crappy homemade sports bars.


or even high end modern bars.


That was not what I was looking for. I wanted to transform the area, to give the room the magic that lets you escape, with the feeling of cozy comfort I had felt when I had visited pubs in England and Ireland. Here are some of the things I found closer to what I'm identifying with on a refined search:



The first picture in particular is appealing, the second is more rustic. I found a great resource in a company that specializes in building home English pubs at englishbars.com. They make great looking and probably high quality bars, but alas, I am not a rich man. I do have two hands and a working knowledge of woodworking and construction.

Next blog post: Confronting Cost, the budget and the wife...