Its warm inside

A place to warm up

Its been a while since I managed to get an update out but thats because a lot has been happening behind the scenes to get this up and running and to provide some new facilities to the village.

The snow is falling and the temperature has dropped below zero but we are open and its nice and warm on the upper deck.

Upper deck bar Upper deck bar

Apart from the seating and tables we have a nice bar to just stand around and get the craic with your mates.

Whilst you are warming up with your coffee or hot chocolate; day or night we are open; in the mean time you may notice some changes inside the shop. New windows have been installed at the front and soon we will make more changes inside to give us more space and so we can introduce some new exciting things.

A snowy day A snowy night

If you havent already, why not stop by day or night; we are open till late so no matter what the time you can catch up with us, with your friends and enjoy some great times.

Upper deck nearly there

Upper Deck booths

With the arrival of our expertly crafted table tops from Alistair the installation work has continued.  Of course that means more cleaning of the original seats before re-installing them.

Upper Deck begins to take shape

Of course it still looks messy as everything is put in what will soon be its final location, the seats have been steam cleaned and orientated to soon form a comfortable booth for enjoying the delights of the cafe or bar.

Upper Deck booths Upper Deck booths

Once in place and secured the craftsmanship really shines and the overall look and feel starts to take shape. Each booth will seat 4 people but of course what if you have a larger party? no problem you sit at the back of the bus

Upper Deck rear seating

This arrangement will hold up to 9 people and will be ideal for a large group.  There is still more work to be done of course, we have another nice piece of the puzzle yet to be installed on the upper deck plus of course lighting and heating; but we are almost there.

The transformation begins

Upper Deck rear seating

After weeks of cleaning the bus is finally beginning to take shape. Over the last week all of the safety rails from the bottom of the stairs to the top and the advertising panels have all been freshly painted.

Painted safety rails Painted safety rails
Painted safety rails Painted advertising panels

We have a new floor installed, which I think really looks great,

Upper deck flooring

And after a good steam clean the first seats are now returned to the bus to mark the start of the transformation from passenger vehicle to bar & cafe.

Like the rest of the bus the seats have years if not decades of built up dirt and dried out chewing gum.

Upper Deck rear seating

But they look great when cleaned and put back in place.

Upper Deck rear seating

 

 

 

2 weeks of cleaning…

After 2 weeks of cleaning, and sanding; stripping of glue from the floor and 20+ years of chewing gum and dirt the upper deck is finally ready to move to the next stage.

prepared upper deck prepared upper deck
prepared upper deck prepared upper deck

With all that preparation done I can now start the painting and final touches in readiness for the new floor.

Masked up and ready for paint Let the painting begin

A busy weekend

So I have finally begun the conversion in earnest and have had a very busy weekend.  By the end of the weekend all of the seats have been stripped out of the upper deck and now its on to the electrics flooring and of course a lot of cleaning.

As you can imagine for a 23 year old bus, there must have been a million people riding her over that time and that means a lot of rubbish and the amount of rock hard chewing gum shoved into the most amazing places means cleaning might take a while.

The space left has let us imagine just what we can do with it and given us some new ideas, What a difference a few days can make.

Currently all the removed seats are now filling up the downstairs area awaiting their own transformation.