With the nation staying at home amid the Covid-19

With the nation staying at home amid the Covid-19 lockdown and pubs forced to shut, some families decided to get creative and build their own in their homes and gardens. 

The impressive designs have everything you’d find if you took a trip to your local – including dartboards, jukeboxes, bar snacks, Sky Sports and even a fruit machine. 

With prices ranging from £400 up to a whopping £18, 000, FEMAIL takes a look at some of the best home pubs getting the country through the pandemic…

Viva las Solihull! – Creative father builds Las Vegas themed bar in his family’s back garden  

A creative family who were missing weekends down the pub during lockdown have built a stunning Las Vegas-themed sports bar in their back garden.

Carpenter John O’Grady, 46, from Birmingham, forked out around £50,000 creating the ultimate DIY boozer with the help of relatives – complete with a jukebox, pool table and huge TVs.

The father-of-four came up with the ingenious way to beat lockdown boredom after the family business came to a standstill during the pandemic.

So John decided to make his life-long dream come true and built his own fully-functioning bar from scratch – with all nine family members chipping in.

The incredible homemade pub took just over four months to complete with the O’Grady’s starting the project mid May and finishing in late September.

Inspired by Las Vegas and other places they have visited, it has draught beer pumps, a fully-stocked bar, jukebox, pool table, darts board and three TVs.

They also enlisted the help of a graffiti artist friend, who has decorated the whole 12m (39ft) x 6m (19ft) outbuilding with stunning murals of Vegas landmarks.

O’Grady’s Bar boasts two smartly decked-out sitting areas where they can enjoy a game of poker or a few drinks while watching football on the TV.

There’s also Wifi, a toilet with plumbed in Saniflow system, neon lighting, running water, central heating and is fully insulated.

The family-of-nine includes John’s four kids, his son’s girlfriend and his mother and father who all live together in Solihull, in the West Midlands.

They said building the state-of-the-art bar had kept them busy over the past few months and had been an ideal way to cheer them all up during lockdown. 

‘I’d always wanted one of those pub sheds but I thought we’d take it to the next level and just build a pub from scratch,’ explained John. ‘We just wanted a room where we could all just go and relax with a drink and enjoy playing pool or darts.

‘I have always wanted to do it but we had just been so busy with work as we run a small little family business.

We just never got around to it so when the pandemic started we had some time on our hands.

‘We decided then to build what we had always wanted down the bottom of the garden – our very own bar. We’re quite proud of it but no one has seen it in person. We have been stunned by the reaction from people who have seen pictures.

They just can’t believe it.

‘I have got friends who have built them and now I feel awful when they compare it to ours. But everyone is excited now to come and have a look.

‘We’re looking forward to spending time there with our friends once this is all over.

I can’t see us going to the pub much anymore though now we have our very own at the end of the garden.’

John’s children Alex, 23, Thomas, 17, Alfie, 13, and eight-year-old Scarlett and wife Shell, 46, all got fully involved in the project.

His mother Margaret, 67, and father Tom, 71, have also lived with the family for the last 10 years along with eldest son’s Alex’s partner 26-year-old Jade.

John added: ‘It has all been one big family effort and has created brilliant memories and we know we are very lucky as we understand people have had it very tough.

‘We’ve possibly spent around £40,000 to £50,000 on it all when you add it up.

A friend of ours called David Brown, who’s a graffiti artist from Birmingham, said he could do some walls for us.

‘He knew we loved America and Vegas in particular and had a bit of memorabilia so that’s how the theme all started really.

‘It’s got a projector in there now and three different TVs and it has CCTV up and around the back of the house.

‘There are also fully functioning beer taps and Carling is our favourite lager so we’ve got barrels of Carling which we get from a local brewery.

The lighting is controlled by apps, it is also fully insulated and 수원셔츠룸 has central heating so it’s good to go in any weather.

He continued: ‘Last week when it was freezing we were down there till around 11pm and it was red hot so the cold is no problem at all.

The walls are also painted with UV paints on some of them so when we turn the lights off everything comes alive in there and it looks totally different.

‘We just thought we wouldn’t be going out for a few months, we just didn’t realise it was going to last for this long.’ 

Pints are on me!

Father builds garden pub complete with Sky Sports and a fruit machine for just £400  

This father transformed a few wooden pallets into an incredible garden pub complete with Sky Sports, a dartboard, and a fruit machine – all for just £400.

Marc Lee says even his kids love spending time at ‘The Boozy Bear’ at their home in Kingstanding, Birmingham. 

Initially, he said he put together a bit of a ‘make do’ bar without a roof in a spot in his garden that never got used.

The project was added to over time and now he loves spending every weekend in the DIY pub with his partner and two kids, aged 14 and 11.

Marc, who works in putting together exhibitions, said: ‘It just grew from nothing really.

‘We had a small dirt track beside the garage so I made a bit of an outside bar out of pallets with no roof.

‘Working in exhibitions, there’s normally a lot of bits of timber and plastic that just gets thrown away and 인계동셔츠룸 I wondered if I could do something with it.’

At the start of the third lockdown, he installed a corrugated roof and PVC skimmed it to make it watertight.

He added electricity, atmospheric strip lighting, and a Heineken Blade beer machine so that he can enjoy draught pints.

He gets the beer supplied from O’Neill’s Brewing Company, based at The Barn Pub & Restaurant in Willey, Warwickshire.

Marc added: ‘It’s turned into one of those hobbies that you don’t stop spending money on. I think the total cost is around £400 and mostly recycled from exhibition waste materials.

‘Now there’s a dartboard, Sky Sports TV, WiFi and a fruit machine.

We have a bar and bar stools. It can seat around eight to 10 people.

‘My partner and kids love it. We all go in there every weekend, especially in the summer.

‘It’s been a godsend when we’ve not been able to go out due to lockdown. We’re all big [Aston] Villa fans so we like to sit and watch the football in there.’

The bar, which has a stylish glass frontage and is around three metres by three metres, has been named ‘The Boozy Bear’.

‘The name is a bit of a long story,’ explained Marc.

‘I used to be called “the Bear” at work so it’s kind of come from there. I’m really pleased with how the bar has turned out. It’s in a space that we couldn’t use for anything else so it’s been great.’

Mark O’Neill supplies the draught beer for ‘The Boozy Bear’ and said he’d seen a surge of home bars being built across the Midlands.

Mr O’Neill said: ‘Since March, we have supplied about 150 home bars across the Midlands with full size beer kegs and have since started stocking smaller kegs for blade machines.’ 

Cheers to that!

Father splashes out £18,000 on his own boozer in the back garden     

This father claims he doesn’t need pubs to reopen – as he splashed £18,000 on building his own boozer in his back garden – complete with a bespoke bar, beer pumps and industrial chillers.

Darren Field-Thomas, from Derbyshire, had a light-bulb moment last year when faced with the prospect of being forced to stay indoors through the pandemic, so built the ultimate man-cave to escape to.

The father-of-five spent six months building the giant 21ft by 17ft space but says the eye-watering sum was ‘worth every penny’ as he recreated a full-scale pub in his back yard.

Like all good boozers, the 60-year-old’s man-cave features a 7ft signature pool table, karaoke machine, a 65inch plasma TV and even a ‘last orders’ bell.

It even has a giant Sky Sports pub banner reading ‘Watch live football here’ – with relatives ‘booking’ it to watch games when lockdown allowed.

The operations manager shared footage of the ‘one big fun area’ in all its glory on LinkedIn and it amassed more than 180,000 likes, comments and views.

Darren, from Ilkeston, said: ‘It truly is amazing – I’m glad I did it.

I haven’t skimped on anything – it’s absolutely been worth every penny.

‘It was absolutely fantastic when it was all finished – I can just walk down my pathway if I’ve got nothing to do and go in there, play pool and put the music on – it’s just great.

‘It’s quite amazing how many people have said ‘why would anyone want to go to the pub when you can come here?’.

‘Once lockdown’s finished you don’t need to go to a pub.’

Building on the man cave began last February as Darren watched nervously as the pandemic began racing across Europe, with the main build being completed within a month.

It was completed and 수원풀싸롱 furnished to a high spec by August, including bespoke bi-fold doors that let in the all important sunshine during the summer months, as well as a top of the range mixer.

Darren said: ‘I thought if we’re in lockdown and can’t go out, I’m going to build a mancave.

‘We started hearing these rumours [about a lockdown] and I thought ‘what am I going to do to keep the family together?

Where am I going to go if we can’t go out?’

‘Keeping the family together, that’s my main aim.

I thought I’d have somewhere to go to where I can play pool, put the music and karaoke on.’

Darren also plans on kitting the ‘fantastic’ space out with an ice machine, microwave, beer kegs and chiller pumps as well as wrap around furniture for the outdoor area.