When we moved into our home in May 2021, one of the biggest highlights of the home was the lower ground floor area, that was being used by the previous residents as essentially a massive living room.
These are a couple of pics of the space that I took on our very first viewing of the home:
Because there was already another living room area on the ground floor, my head started spinning when we initially visited the house about what we could use this very large room for.
It was really a no-brainer for us to think about this space as a entertainment zone of sorts. It was big enough to think about having separate seating, dining areas as well as a bar. The great think about converting this into an entertainment space is that the room has sliding doors out into the garden so that if it was summer we can extend the entertainment zone into the outdoors as well.
The first step of renovating this space was attacking the walls. We painted them a deep purple to bring both a cosy vibe to the room but also something that wouldn’t be out of place in a bar or club.
The next big step was replacing the floor. It originally had this orangey carpet that did not fit the vision I had for the space.
Instead, I wanted to go for something that would both be practical but also not out of a place in a bar. I landed on micro-cement as an easily cleanable but fantastic looking statement.
To install micro-cement, there are multiple steps that need to happen. First, of course, the existing carpet had to come up, both on the main floor and also on the stairway up to the ground floor which would also be done in micro-cement.
Once the carpet was up, we saw how many cracks were in the floor, which had to get smoothed out.
We also had the carpenter make some adjustments to the stairs while the wood was exposed. We wanted them to have a sleeker look, so the carpenter removed the lip of each stair so that they would look much more modern.
Once all the prep work was done, the real work could begin! Micro-cement has to be applied in layers, which is painstaking work! Each layer was applied to the whole floor and stairs, then we waited for it to dry, and then another layer was applied again. I think we applied 4 or 5 layers!
Although the process took a while, the end result was definitely worth it, and it looked exactly how I pictured it in my head. Here is how the floors turned out:
Once the floors were applied, we could get started installing the bar, which actually only took two days from start to finish (though the design stage took multiple months including multiple iterations).
So, there’s still a fair bit to do before I would consider the bar finished finished! Some stuff we still need to do to get the bar fully complete:
- Figure out what lighting we want to have above the bar (right now its a very attractive single, swinging lightbulb ha!)
- Figure out what artwork we might want on the wall next to the bar
- Get some bar stools!
But, honestly, its perfect for now, and those details can come as and when! Here’s a little look at what it looks like right now as a full room:
