whatsleftofyou's Bar Build

[glavini]

May I suggest some bar molding instead of the trim. I think that would really set it off nicely. I'm currently working in my bar build and have some pics up if you want to check it out.

 

[whatsleftofyou]

I'm only putting the trim on the "bartender" side, not the outer side where the bar stools are. I fully intend to put bar molding there, but probably not until after the holidays.

 

[whatsleftofyou]

OK so I'm a HUGE slacker and haven't updated this thread in two months. Some of these are a bit out of order, but here's the progress:

Irish coffin built and mostly trimmed:

"The business end"

Obligatory up-close Perlick 525ss shot:

The guts with one tap hooked up. I have this fan all wired and ready to go, but so far I honestly haven't needed it. The coffin is warm but I'm not getting foamy pours.

Four more taps hooked up:

All trimmed. For some reason the vertical pieces stained way lighter than the horizontal pieces. It's not as bad in person as the flash makes it out to be, but looks kinda cool anyway.

Another angle:

First pour, 18-month old RIS!

Chalkboard tap list and touch-screen jukebox:

Hidden stem rack:

 

[whatsleftofyou]

Lastly and a bit unrelated, part of the "theme" of my bar is going to be pre-prohibition breweries from the city I live in. This bottle is from the Richter Brewing Company that operated only a few blocks from my house, and closed at prohibition.

There's still some work to do, but she's functional!

 

[nhwrecker]

Things are coming along nicely - did you make that touch-screen jukebox yourself? Does it feed into an amp and speakers?

 

[kpr121]

Looks great! It looks like you have got an ultimate beer basement, was that a cellar in the background of one of those pics? Also interested in the jukebox.

 

[3PegBrew]

You inspired me to pursue my dream (well one of my dreams). I hope you don't mind me using your design to get me going on the blackboard.

 

[whatsleftofyou]

Regarding the jukebox, yes I did put it together myself. I'm an IT guy by day so it wasn't a huge task. I bought a used touchscreen off of eBay that was pulled from some kind of kiosk and hooked it up to a small form factor Compaq PC that I also bought off of eBay. I'm currently just using Spotify for my music, but plan on eventually getting a piece of jukebox software for a nice front-end interface.

Here's the PC, hiding away in the corner.

Pioneer receiver that it plugs into with a 1/8" stereo -> RCA cable

Speakers on each side of the back bar

Better view of the swivel arm that the screen is attached to

As for the cellar room, this house was built in the 1920s so it's actually the old coal-storage room. No windows, concrete all around, shelves were already there...the first time I walked into it I said, "CELLAR!". It doesn't stay super cold, usually 60-65 so it doubles as my fermentation room/random beer crap storage as well. Here are a few pics:

 

[Yooper]

Oh, that's so cool!!!!

Very nice build, and thank you for all of the pictures.

 

[rockinmarty]

nice build. nice to see a coffin where it is supposed to be. close to the barkeep like in a pub. love it. if you do anything else go ahead we all love brew pron

 

[Jaysus]

This is great, the touch screen juke box is an awesome touch!

 

[Hoppopotomus]

What a fantastic setup! Very, very nice work....you should be proud of it. Now what would it take to get you to hook me up with one of those fancy touch screen jukeboxes? I purchase the parts.....you put it together for me.... What a great idea. Cheers!

 

[whatsleftofyou]

Thanks for the compliments, all. The jukebox was really not all that difficult to set up. I can post more specifics if anyone would like, but here are the basics:

• I bought a refurbished small form factor PC on eBay that already had Windows XP loaded on it. You can find these pretty readily on eBay for under $50.
• The touch screen was also an eBay purchase. It's a 15" touch screen that was likely pulled from some kind of kiosk, and it connects to the PC with VGA and USB. There's just a program that you have to install to make it work (that should come with it), basically a mouse driver.
• The arm is this.
• I still haven't messed with this enough to work on getting proper jukebox software going on there but I have a few that I'm looking at. Right now I'm just playing music with Spotify.

 

[Biohazard]

Nice looking build, very jealous of all that KBS

For the interface on the PC you may want to look into a carpc style program. (I am an IT guy by day too). I have one running for my garage touch screen pc and it makes it nice for SWMBO to fire up the tunes or play a movie off the home server for the kiddos to watch while she does laundry.

 

[whatsleftofyou]

Thanks for the tip. I'd been looking exclusively at "jukebox" software and hadn't considered the front-end stuff used in car audio systems. I'll look into that.