Rowena, who is also licensee of the Prince of Wales Hotel just up the road, said the building has incredible potential, but admits that it needs a lot of work too.

"The building is in desperate need of some TLC. Right now we've closed downstairs where we would like to put the staircase back," Rowena said.

"Originally the staircase used to come from the front entrance and it was this beautiful grand staircase that went up to the top, it was like this 1920s building, there's these chandeliers and it was so nice and they changed the staircase I think to make it suit what they needed for the pub.

"It's a massive job, the windows are all gonna fall out and it hasn't had a lick of paint for a long time but our aim is to work through it. There's a vision there that would be really cool. I feel like I want to make it - I haven't made my mind up yet - but I feel like I want it to be accommodation downstairs as well."

Rowena's family has long been in the hotel business and she says the decision to close the bar at the Commercial was a practical one.

"My family owned the Prince of Wales Hotel in Gulgong since 1976. In all that time four pubs in Gulgong can be a struggle. So to buy - yeah we were never going to buy that pub and run it as a hotel," Rowena said.

"There's been a shortage in Gulgong for accommodation for as long as I can remember.

"Gulgong is booming, Mudgee is booming, the area is booming. But Gulgong definitely is for sure. Pubs have changed so much over that period of time, they're totally different now to what they used to be.

"We get a lot of people come from Sydney that want to stay in a little, quirky country town."

The downstairs bar itself could find new life considering the premises is still licensed.

"Downstairs will have more accommodation as well, the bar itself I have not decided - it's still licensed," Rowena said.

"To me it would be really cool to have in town like some sort of function centre. If you had - it's got a commercial kitchen - so if you came in and got outside caterers and went 'we're going to have a wedding', a 21^st or whatever. You could have all the bedrooms upstairs, have a functioning bar downstairs, caterers coming to do the food and stuff...it would be a really cool spot.

"That's a big vision to have."

Rowena chronicles the renovations of the old building on the Instagram page: commercial_gulgong_renovations

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