Creative Home Bar Ideas

Play bartender at home. Serve your drinks in style from a compact version of the classic bar, a chic bar cart, or a cool cabinet! Whether your dreams involve hosting lavish parties, watching football at a home sports bar, or simply having a place to mix a cocktail, we hope our favorite home bar ideas will inspire your next happy-hour!

Bar Carts: Let the Good Times Roll

Portable bar carts are crazy useful! Stock them with your favorite ingredients to whip up a cocktail in minutes, or roll it outdoors for a sunset or star gazing cocktail. Use these versatile, ingenious inventions for just about anything, anywhere! They’re compact, fit in just about any out-of-the-way spot, and they’re stylish! Here are just a few of our favorites.

Use a Piece of Furniture

This Libation Locker comes with everything you’ll need to set up shop. It’s cleverly designed as a piece of furniture that reveals its usefulness once opened. OR…

Convert a sideboard into a Libation Console to fit the room’s decor. Tucked away behind closed doors are the extra bottles and bar paraphernalia to keep things tidy. Although, leaving bottles out on a sideboard can look a bit messy, lining them up carefully on two oblong trays looks purposeful and shouts, “Cocktail anyone”? To see the full project click Industrial Cyclist.

Re-Purpose an Old Picnic Basket

Create a mini bar in an old picnic basket (pictured) or suitcase with its lid propped open, and your drink selection will have a nice, vintage feel. Fancy a Manhattan, anyone? To see the full project click Modern Farmhouse.

Build into an Alcove

Give an alcove a new identity with a dry bar. Fill the shelves with an enticing mix of drinks and glassware. The alcove is located adjacent to the living and dining room making it the perfect place for the preparation of a refreshing cocktail! Take cues from the surrounding room’s aesthetic for the design elements to construct your new dry bar. To see the full project click The Herringbone House.

Re-Purpose Under Utilized Space

Belly up to the bar in your own bar space where the party will always follow you.

BEFORE ABOVE this open concept floor plan had three dining and two living areas (open area pictured). Confining the living and dining areas to the front half of the space gave us the opportunity to create a cool pub in the newly available back space. This made room for a pool table and snack bar. Adjacent to the pool table is a bar. Now each space has its own useful identity.

To see the full project click Pool Table House.

Create Your Own Space

Sometimes getting creative and thinking outside the box does the trick. Walling off the back side of a walk-thru did two things; it blocked the dining area’s view of the front door and created the perfect spot for a home bar. To get the details for creating a bar space like this one click Making Space Work For You. To see the full project click Finding Their Style.

Raise the Bar!