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Garden pub bar made from recycled pallets

Garden Pub/Bar

Our pub is Called  FUBAR. Made from recycled pallets. I have tried to add descriptions to the pictures where needed.

The white sheets are old posters from the giant bill boards. They are waterproof and large so great for many things. Underneath this i have whole pallets as my floor. We levelled the ground and put the pallets down as a base then covered it in the poster sheets. The walls are pallets, one on top of the other and reinforced with batons, planks and lots of screws. The picture should explain it better than words.

The floor is the planks from large pallets, they are 30mm thick so it is very strong. I don't use a thicknesser as i am too tight to buy one. The pallet planks were pulled off the pallets and placed perpendicular to the pallets running underneath; this adds strength to each piece and holds it all together better. As you can see we have also done the same with the walls.

The green stuff is vapour barrier on the INSIDE of the walls. We then have 100mm of insulation and the black stuff you see on the outside is breathable membrane, this is very important as it allows the whole structure to breath. The windows are double glazed mahogany that we got for free, they are only supported in this pic, not in their final place yet. In this pic not all the insulation and membrane is in yet.

Sizing up the windows. As we wanted to keep the strength in the pallets and not have any weight on the windows we cut the windows sizes/shapes from the middle of the pallets with a chainsaw. This was the fastest and laziest way i could find to do it.

We decided on feather board for the outside as this is the best balance between being tight and being lazy. Roof supports begun.

You can use pallet boards for the outside but that was too much work. If you use pallets planks router the edges so they interlock.

Roof supports being temporarily tacked in place to line it up with everything . Sorry don’t have pictures of the final batons in place.

Roof on. This is 3 meters long metal sheeting. It works out about the same price as using ply board and good shingle felt so we decided this is the most economical solution.

Because my garden is on a slope we wanted a nice looking roof as this is what we see from the house.

I wanted a sliding door and it gave us more problems than anything else.. I wanted it to slide inside the wall when open but i wasn’t willing to sacrifice the insulation, so in the end I had to build a false wall in front of the original wall. The door and the roof was the only thing i wasn’t willing to compromise on.

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The door is very heavy and 1400mm wide so i was unable to buy any sliding mechanisms that would work. I made a sliding baton at the top that the door follows and I also put wheels under the door and routed a small grove in the floor.

This took me 3 days to get right and i must have installed and removed it a hundreds times before I was happy with it.

I refused to have anything on the floor for the door as i didn't want to create a tripping hazard as i fall over just fine on my own when i had a few.

Inside walls being covered in pallet slats. I decided to do them horizontal to add strength to the pallet shell.

Front wall. I went vertical on this wall just because I could. No other reason really. I prefer this way.

Back wall. We put up a large poster on the back wall but I wasn’t happy with how it looked so I brought some tongue & grove and added this to the sides with a little decorative bit at the top. Looks more like looking out of a window now as the picture is set back from the tongue & grove. I added led lighting behind the decorative overhang so it shines down on the poster.

You will notice we tongue & grooved the ceiling. This has breathable membrane and 100mm on insulation, then some baton and then the tongue and grove. The wood should not touch the membrane as it will cause condensation and damp.

For power we used 2.5 cable in an RCD going to a fused spur. I am rather careful with electric as it's dangerous stuff (no shit sherlock). I only pull about 2-3 thousand watts at most so this is the safest and cheapest way to do it, it can provide a lot more than this so no danger of a fire or overload.

You will notice everything i do always comes down to money. Nothing wrong with being a tight arse.

The Bar. We made a basic frame work using baton for strength and then used old pallet wood to cover it all. I routed the edge and sanded it all down. I then found some real cheap bees wax and rubbed it into the top with a cloth, now it’s nice and smooth.

Stained bar

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I put normal coat hooks in but they looked crap, so i used the bits of scrap wood from  my wine rack. Much better and not dangerous when i fall against it. I needed to be careful here as my arcade machine is near the hooks and i get a bit animated when playing, i forgot how annoying pac-man and space invaders is.

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The bottle opener/ plaque is a scrap bit of wood from the front of the bar, I routed the edges then lightly sanded, only a bit as i wanted the rough look to remain. I then used a wood burning tool to burn on FUBAR then varnished it all. If you don't have a wood burning tool a soldering iron will work. I added the bottle opener from china for about £1

The wine rack was a bit of scrap timber again from the frame of the bar. I used a hole cutter 28 or 32mm, cant remember which, cut some random holes in it and then used the bits for coat hooks. The wine rack is only used for bottles with screw tops or fake cork tops.Real cork must be kept wet.

Another pic of my door because I love it. The windows are the opening bits from a smashed window. I removed these and fixed them in place. You would have thought they were designed for the door. Awesome.

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I know, I have an unhealthy attachment to my door.

I added a foot rail to the bar. It's the little details that count. I used the square blocks from the pallets and used cheap wooden baton screwed on top of the blocks.

I was going to build stools (well i did make one) but it was OK for me but too low for the kids so we brought gas ones. The kids use these up to the arcade machine so i needed adjustable ones as they still aren't full size people yet.

I made a pool cue holder, just because i wanted too. It is made with bits of scrap baton and the left over tongue and grove from the back wall and ceiling.

I can add instructions for this to another project tab later if it's wanted.

Final pictures of it complete-ish.

Notice the pack of peanuts, just like a real pub.

Final pictures of it complete.

There are a few things left to do but these will be the final picture as its only minor stuff left to do. I will be adding a hatch to the bar, that's why the coat hook bit slide and i will be adding a bit of uplighting to the front of the bar.

 Feel free to leave comments.

cheers 

shaun

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