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# HQ-Build-Out: Episode 8
- URL: https://www.bourbonbanter.com/hq-build-out-episode-8/
- Published: 2026-11-02T17:55:41.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-02T17:55:41.000Z
- Description: The floors are done, the furniture is back, and the shop finally looks like the place I’ve been describing for 20 weeks.
- Author: Patrick "Pops" Garrett
- Tags: HQ Build-Out

Same floors, same furniture. Very different room.

> *The daylight view. The good stuff comes out after dark.*

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure the floors had it in them. Months of construction left the VCT tile beat up and filthy. It’s tough stuff, though, and I couldn’t justify ripping it out and paying to replace it, so we brought in a refinishing company to clean and rewax it instead.

It worked. It’s never going to look brand new, and there’s one spot in front of the TV wall, right where my desk used to sit, where I managed to grind a pattern into the tile that isn’t coming out. (A table is going over it anyway, so I’m calling that a wash.) Everything else came up better than I expected.

Two days later, the furniture went back in. The long table seats 14 for formal tastings, the science cabinet is getting some of our more limited bottles, and with two TVs up you’ll have a screen in view no matter where you sit. We threw down a rug to warm things up, and a couple of the bourbon barrel photos I took back in 2012 finally made it onto the wall.

The pantry has a new name. It’s the bar room now. It still needs shelves, but the fridge is in, and if you look up you’ll find something that’s been sitting in my garage for 23 years. The corner with the vintage globe bar, the one that helped start all of this, is getting a very special memorial. More on that soon.

There’s still plenty left: decorations, a few more barrels behind the back couch, and a lot of fine-tuning. And I still haven’t moved the 800-plus bottles from my house. That means more shelves, and it means I could use some muscle. If you’re in St. Louis and want to help haul whiskey, let me know. We’ll open a few bottles while we’re at it.

What you won’t see in this one is the evening view. The shop really comes alive when the overhead lights go off and the ambient lounge lighting comes on, and I’m saving that for the next episode. It’ll probably be the last one in the series.

Watch the full video below for the walkthrough, including the before-and-after on the floors and that thing hanging over the bar room. If this is your first episode, go back to the start of the playlist and see where this began.