This post contains affiliate links & photos. See our full disclosure here.
One of the perks of being a grown up is creating spaces in your home meant just for the grown ups! Here’s how to create a bar area in your home, even if you live in a small space.
If you’ve been a reader of our blog for long, you know I love to create little spaces of joy. A coffee bar, a reading nook, a cozy entryway. Having an organized place for everything is part of it. But truthfully, I just really like these little spaces as part of the bigger whole of our home.
When we moved into this house, there was actually a dry bar area in the basement. Unfortunately, cliche, wood-paneled basement bars are not my favorite – especially since our basement is where all the teenagers hang out! And in reality, even though this house is a good size, we don’t really have the space for a dedicated bar. So, we’ve compromised and created smaller spaces that make up a bar area. And we’re sharing them with you…here’s how to create a bar area in your home, even if you live in a small space!
5 Steps to Create a Bar Area in Your Home
1. Decide Where to Put It
Like I mentioned, our teenagers hang out in our basement, while Dean and I and our (grown up) friends spend our time on the main floor. So, putting the bar stuff downstairs makes no sense here. But maybe the basement is the perfect place for your bar area. Or maybe it’s best in your dining room, living room or kitchen. In any case, you need to choose the best location for it based on your lifestyle. In this house, we’ve chosen to use a combination of the living room and kitchen since they’re open to each other and part of our main entertaining/hospitality space.
2. Add Stools
This step isn’t totally necessary, but it sure adds some comfort to a bar area. We’ve got this built in, as our nine-foot island is the ‘divider’ between our kitchen and living room and we have six comfy stools here all the time. Another option if you don’t have a lot of space is to add folding chairs or stools to your bar area just when you’re hosting.
3. Make it Personal
Of course this is really just for fun and not a necessity either. Depending on where you decide to put the bar area in your home, you could choose a fun marquee sign, or a hand-painted banner or any number of things to make your space more personal.
Again, since our bar area is our living room and kitchen, we’ve chosen to add a metal, laser-cut gather sign above our open shelving. What would make your bar area personal to you?
4. Create Pretty Storage
Now, storage is definitely a necessity! And pretty storage is the best kind of storage, right? In a bar area, you will need a place to store glasses of all different sizes and types, liquor, wine bottles, and other bar accoutrements like bar mop cloths, shakers, shot glasses, ice buckets, etc. Here, most of this lives in our glass-door bookcase at the back of the living room. While a few things are in the kitchen, like the red wine (in the wine rack atop the cabinet) and mini fridge (for pop/soda, white wine and beer).
You could also employ the use of a pretty bar cart, chest of drawers or other cabinet for storing these things too.
5. Add Somewhere to Wash Up
With all that sharing and hosting in your bar area, you will need somewhere to clean up! If you can create a small dedicated bar with a sink, that would be perfect, of course. But if you don’t have the space for that and you’re near or in the kitchen with your bar area like we are, you should choose a lovely faucet for washing up. A well-chosen faucet is not only practical, it’s also pretty to look at. Two of my favorite things!
BLANCO’s new EMPRESSA™ line of four faucets would make a great choice for a bar area and a kitchen because they’re inspired by BLANCO’s German heritage. Each faucet in the EMPRESSA™ collection boasts a stunning silhouette modeled after the shape of vintage wine presses found across Europe. With four finishes – Polished Nickel, Oil Rubbed Bronze, Stainless Finish or Polished Chrome – and four styles to choose from, the EMPRESSA™ collection can suit any style. I love the entire collection….
But the bridge faucet – with built-in pull-down sprayer – is my favorite! (Imagine it in Oil-Rubbed Bronze with a farmhouse sink!)
So, that’s it. It’s not hard to create a beautiful, functional bar area in your home, even if you live in a small space, when you use these five steps!
Have you created a bar area in your home? If so, where? What are some of your bar must-haves?
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of BLANCO. The opinions and text are all mine.
