Blind Squirrel brewery build

[blind squirrel]

So my wife and I sold our house that we fixed up in a sub-division for a "dream house" in the country. Well not really country, just out of a home owners association and have a little land. We found a place that will work and the best part is there is an unfinished room in the basement that was added on to the house I will finish for my new brewery. I have been home brewing for the last 5-6 years after being taught by a local brew master here in KC. I almost went for a career in Brewing, but the life of a brewer is not made for a family man like I am. Now I work at a microbiology lab so the supplies I need to geek out on beer are easy to come by. The updates will be slow at first, as I have to finish building the rest of my house before my wife will let me finish the brewery. I'm doing all the improvements myself, I'll mix in a few of those photos too.

The all grain brewing setup I currently have is all home made. (I can give pointers if you have questions about making your own.) This rig will brew up to 10 gallons at a time.



My filter system for people that want crisp looking beer.



And of course the brewery sign so we know where we are.

 

[blind squirrel]

So I didn't take a super before photo of the room I'm finishing, but the people before us built the walls but didn't pour the floor..... We poured the floor last night. The concrete truck was unable to get around the back of my house, so I had to rent a "Georgia buggy". This thing was awesome to drive!







The final product...

 

[t-man]

Awesome! Subbed!!!

 

[97BlackAckCL]

Thanks for posting Squirrely, I'm definitely excited to see where this goes! :frisky:

 

[blind squirrel]

Now that my brewery is in sight, I'm motivated more than ever to get this project done. It was a full gut to the studs, new plumbing, and electrical. So far I've done it all myself after I get off my normal job as a microbiologist at 5. Usually I work till about 10pm and sleep then do it all over again. Started this Nov 7th. Got a start on finishing the master shower last night.... these pebbles take forever to put down, but look good. My wife is an interior designer so nothing is easy, but worth it.



Here is the tongue and grove board I did in the family room. It was just a smooth ceiling with settling cracks in a few spots before I started. First with one coat, then the final product. You can imagine what the whole house looked like just by looking at the previous owners wall color selection...lol. One wall that is no longer there was painted with chalk board paint. Little did they know when you write on it the chalk leaves intentions in the drywall.

 

[blind squirrel]

A couple of updates on the progress. I ordered a new "banjo" burner for the brewery because this house is out of the city and on propane, my old natural gas burner would not work. I have to make a 15.5 gallon keg of beer for my family reunion in august, so I have to get started on that. I will brew next weekend and take a few shots.

Here is the main bathroom tile, vanity, and my daughter's leg.

Guest shower


The fedex man dropped of my new all glass shower door too. 69 lbs of 3/8 inch glass. Locally the cheapest price I could find was $550. Got it on ebay for $320 shipped to my door... crazy.

Since this is a 4runner forum I guess I will post a photo of my latest upgrade to the runner. The ad said I will instantly get at least 10 more mpgs with this kit....

 

[Jernik]

Your picture on the most awesome "wheel burro" ever makes me sad... I remember when I used to have land, trees, no HOA, and a decent sized garage. Sigh... AND you have a brewery going in the basement! So envious right now. You a lucky man :thumb: (until winter :laugh. Don't get me wrong, I don't have it bad, just not quite where I want to be! :cheers:

 

[blind squirrel]

I hear ya about the winter part... being this far out the plow trucks get here about 2 o'clock in the afternoon...if ever. We should be okay, my wife will be driving an awd RDX shortly and I get the runner.

I did have a 50 foot maple tree fall in the back yard a few days ago. Real bummer, because of all the rain we have been getting in Kansas right now she just fell over with a good gust of wind. The good news is I called a saw mill and they want to come get it and give me 1k! I think I'm going to tell them $900 and I want a piece for a mantel on my fireplace.

 

[Jernik]

That section of your yard reminds me of part of ours. We had 4 acres, 2.5 to 3 of them wooded. Had a little tornado come through, and we lost about 20 trees in the area we mowed, around 100 total, a lot of them were pretty big. House was OK, although we got a new roof out of it. Nobody wanted any of our trees though (mostly ash and cottonwood, some cherry, sugar maple, and a couple small walnut) - I guess due to the tornado possibly messing up the fibers in it? I dunno, but none of the mills were interested. I can see why they wouldn't want to bother with the cottonwood, but thought they might want the ash/cherry/walnut. Thankfully we had neighbors to help, and they got some nice firewood for their work. We didn't have a fireplace at the time, but the firepit out back burned well for a couple years!

We'd have cut the whole 4 acres down and retired if we could have gotten $900 a tree out of it! lol

Cool idea about using some of it for a mantle. :thumb3:

 

[blind squirrel]

Quick progress update. I got the master bathroom painted, tiled, and grouted the shower this weekend. Just need to caulk around the edges and I can try out the dual shower heads! I have the glass shower door ready to go in tonight that required I drill 8 holes through the porcelain tile to mount it to the wall. Not too bad, but paying 20 dollars for a diamond coated 1/4 inch hole saw that I will only use once in my life sucked.

Back to Brewing, I'll be brewing 15 gallons of beer on Friday in preparation for my wife's side family reunion in aug. It will be nice to just sit around and brew for a day, this working 7-11:30 everyday is starting to get old. :cheers:

 

[blind squirrel]

Oh yeah... Can't forget the Ikea kitchen cabinets! Only came in 96 boxes...lol. All joking aside, they turned out really well and to my surprise there were no pieces missing. Should have the counter tops in 2 weeks. I'm expecting to move in shortly after the counter tops get installed. Then the real fun begins and I can build the brewery. :beer:

 

[wadle5]

Oh yeah... Can't forget the Ikea kitchen cabinets! Only came in 96 boxes...lol. All joking aside, they turned out really well and to my surprise there were no pieces missing. Should have the counter tops in 2 weeks. I'm expecting to move in shortly after the counter tops get installed. Then the real fun begins and I can build the brewery. :beer:

View attachment 161869

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Killer ceilings. The rest of it looks great too! Cheers!

 

[blind squirrel]

I guess an update is in order.

The counter tops have now been installed, went with Quarts and looks pretty good.



I cut the mantle log from the maple tree that fell in the backyard... ran in to a few "new friends". 6 foot black rat snake, which I'm okay with... but the Carolina wolf spider as big as my hand........ yikes.




And the last piece of drywall went up over the fireplace. Next is the stone.



Thinking about a month away from moving in, then I can finish up on my husbandly duties and finally start making beer on a large scale. Any ideas/suggestions are welcome. :beer:

 

[Jernik]

Can't wait to see the mantle. And the brewery!

Only suggestion I can think of; get some good in-wall speakers for your sound system (or at least wire for on-wall speakers). Good ones can be pricey, but paired with a sub they sound great and save a ton of floor space. Pre-run wiring in walls so you don't have to try and hide them later. You could also plan out audio for different zones throughout the house/porch/deck/bar and pre-wire if you need to add on to the system gradually as the budget allows. Probably should have mentioned this before you finished the dry-wall...

 

[wadle5]

Probably busy building out the brewery.

But really what are the updates now????

 

[NewguyNY]

Love it man! Updates?

 

[marshal]

common meow

 

[blind squirrel]

Thanks for sticking with my thread, for some reason I didn't get any notifications that there were any posts in my thread. Time for a big update.

It took 2.5 days for me to lay ~1,650 square feet of this flooring. Once you get started, you can really move with this stuff.



My daughters room is almost done, just the base boards to go.



Got the kitchen pretty well done, just have to finish routing the stove vent into the soffit. Funny story about our appliances, we bought them all from home depot on black friday... last November. We had to spend a little more to get the "slate" finish on all but the stove my wife had to have. It doesn't show finger prints... and looks good imho. Well, ~7 months after they were delivered I finally opened the boxes. All freaking stainless steel finishes!! :jaw: I tell the wife about the finish and needless to say, she was not happy.

I call the home depot store where we bought them, talked to the appliance manager. She said she was happy to trade me out for the correct finish for an extra $800 because the black friday prices are no longer valid. Now note I have spent over 25k on supplies at hd over the past year on this house and another so I'm expecting them to trade me out no questions asked. She said it was the best she could do... I called their corporate office and 2 days later the store manager called and asked when he could personally bring the correct appliances. That's what I'm talking about boys!

 

[blind squirrel]

The master bath is done



And two sinks to keep our marriage in good standing...lol



Like another member on the house building thread, we went with the "barn" door for our dual closets. Turned out pretty cool and the door was cheap, only like $45 I think. The hardware is where you pay though, it was around $100 off ebay.

 

[blind squirrel]

At this point I needed to take a break, so I went on a research trip to Denver and the Great American Brew Fest. Pretty awesome, 600 breweries in a convention center handing out their best brews for 4 hours straight. Towards the end.... the weak started to fall....:barf:. I made it through the fest without throwing up... but after the third brewery we toured after.... I gave in. But kept on pushing through.

To give you an idea of how big of a deal this is... 60k people come to this 3 day fest. Here was the line to get in. There were 6 of these lines of people waiting to booze it up.



After I got back home, I had some beer I made for a friend's wedding that needed to get cold. I pulled my kegorator way from the wall in the garage and proceeded to crap my pants. I found this....Snake skin



I assume it is from the same snake I moved a few months before. Almost 4.5 feet long...yikes. Needless to say I powered through my fear and got the beer cold. I made 25 gallons for their wedding that turned out great.

It's looking like 2-3 more months before I can start on the brewery room, but the longer I wait the more cool ideas and plans I come up with. We are living at the house while I work, so that makes it a little easier and I get to see my family a lot more. :cheers: