I've made my living writing about beer and whiskey for 30 years, but I've never had a home bar: no time, no space, no money. That all changed when we moved to our new home in rural Pennsylvania, and unexpectedly inherited some money. We spent the last seven years staging a renovation of an 1850's-era fixer upper, a stone/wood frame home on the main street of our small town. One of the last stages was a small basement bar.

I had originally envisioned an Edwardian-style snug, a small, cozy bar with lots of dark, polished wood, brass fittings, stained glass. But as the demolition of the basement progressed, we realized that the stone walls behind most of the drywall and paneling were sound, and very attractive. Time for a paradigm shift.

I talked to our contractor, Matt Garman, Garman Construction of Bellefonte, PA about design elements of a west Ireland rural pub. My wife and I have been there several times, and love the simple, old pubs in the western counties. Matt looked at photos I had taken, and a documentary video I found online, and we came into alignment on a vision for the bar. Rustic, clean, but looking like it's been in place for years.

The basement had a plywood floor over dirt and huge old wooden beams (sadly, they were pretty rotten). Matt tore that up, jack-hammered a stone ridge out (his daughter Brooklyn actually did a lot of the jackhammer work!), leveled it all with gravel, and poured concrete. One of the last steps in construction was staining the concrete.

The overhead was a jumble of wires, pipes, and ductwork. He standardized everything, tucked it up into the inter-joist spaces (strengthening several of them that had been cut over the years), and put up a ceiling of locally-milled white pine (Rockville Moulding, Smulton, PA), with a light coat of polyurethane. The lights were found online, after literally a week of searching for appropriate fixtures. There's a long boxed area along the streetside wall to accommodate the higher windows; he put small can lights in there on a dimmer.

The mechanical room (on-demand water heater, backup furnace, main air handler) was shifted back into the crawl space to create more room; I also put my keg fridge in there, with two taps coming through the back wall behind the bar (one for beer, one for seltzer or batch cocktails).

Matt figured out how to add a powder room. Since our sewer hookup was up the hill, behind the house, he added a grinder pump in the floor of the basement, tucked into a small utility closet (the main water hookup is in another small closet by the streetside door of the bar). The doors to the closets were also built out of local white pine.

There's another door to the crawl space, which is lighted, leveled, and lined with moisture barrier plastic sheeting (utilities guys constantly tell us how great our crawl space is!), but also three feet above floor level; Matt added a set of fold-down stairs and a grab bar so I can easily access the keg fridge.

The bar is a locally-planed slab of black walnut (Little Mule Slabs, Millheim, PA), and the structure is clad with wood salvaged from our demolished 1860s-era kitchen. There's a utility sink, outlets, and shelving behind the bar (Diamond Custom Kitchen, Spring Mills, PA). We got oak barstools from an Amish furniture maker in New Wilmington, PA.

The windows and the stairs up to the first floor are done in wood salvaged from a Pennsylvania barn and Kentucky horse fences (Antique Building Solutions, Howard, PA, GREAT people, and I highly recommend them). Matt painted the walls with milk paint (Real Milk Paint), which he said was a lot of work, "annoying," but the look and the finish are perfect for what we were aiming for.

I was posting pictures of the ongoing construction on Facebook, and as we neared completion, I got a message from a well-known State College bartender. He said he'd like to tend bar for my "soft opening." Well, sure! So we christened the bar in June, had about 30 people over, and I introduced Matt Garman, the man who did the whole thing, to them, and he took a round of applause.

We've enjoyed the bar quite a bit since then; have friends over, have small town meetings there, and I invited the band from our local brewpub up for drinks after the show one night. I don't know why I waited this long to have a bar!

How it looked the day we bought it. Scary, and smelled of fuel oil. You can see the dirt floor under plywood. Louvered door is the mechanicals.

The original steps. Now about a foot and a half wider.

Concrete poured, mechanicals moved.

Top entrance. Pictures are the local mill race (our house was originally built by one of the mill owners), the white door doesn't open; used to open to the outdoors. We decided to leave it in place, with insulation behind it.

Coming down the stairs.

Finished bar. Propane stove in the corner (remote starter on the wall on far right).

Crawlspace, with steps up. Planning to put storage racks on the left for spirits and wine.

The night of the opening; you can see the taps, and the open crawlspace entrance.

The "soft opening."

Matt Garman, with his wife, in the middle. Great job!