A couple of creative neighbours decided to build their own social-distancing-friendly pub in their garden by flipping over a piece of their separating fence to make a bar area.
‘The Distant Arms’ was created by Abbie Courtney and husband Chris who had a long-standing joke about building a pub with their pals and when lockdown forced us all to stay in our homes.
Chris, a sound engineer, had collected bits of wood over the years, which he was able to put to good use on this project, meaning that it cost him absolutely zilch to create.
Footage shows the converted fence panel flipping easily into a makeshift bar, while a piece of wood perched on top reminds everyone of the safe-two-metre distance.
Once it was all set up, Abbie invited their pals from next door Nichola and Marc Lewis to the grand opening.
Abbie, from Llanelli in Wales, said: “We just want to make people laugh and have some fun.
“It’s about friendship and love for us – and staying in touch with loved ones. The pub’s open 24 hours a day and cost nothing to build.
“More than anything it’s fun and great for us because we’ve got something to look forward to every night. It’s always going to be there now and the memories will stay with us.
“How do you know your neighbours aren’t nice? This is the time now to say ‘let’s have a drink over the wall. Let’s burn the bridges’.
“As long as we can make people smile we don’t care – we’re happy.”
The couple say they had talked about making their own home pub since 2017 and when the coronavirus meant they both had to stay at home they decided to get to work.
Abbie added: “We moved back to my hometown when I was pregnant back in 2015 and instantly hit it off with the neighbours, but didn’t really get socialising with them until the end of 2016 because my husband and I work away.
“We said ‘you know what, we should actually fold our fence down so if ever the kids are in bed we can have a few drinks and socialise over the wall’.
“When we knew the lockdown was definitely on the way we knew we needed to do something. We delayed it until I said ‘right, come on. Do it now’.
“I got my husband to work and the best thing is it didn’t cost a penny. My husband is a hoarder and keeps every plank of wood. We renovated our house so we have saws and everything.
“Our neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter designed the sign and we made it. We already had the paint. That was her home schoolingwork – it was brilliant.
Comments