When Friends Help…With Anything

When you are working with your friends on your home bar, what is your major pet peeve?

I just wrote a funny article. It was about enlisting friends to help you: Home Bar Scam Artists

But, that article was inspired by a home bar project were just completed and a conversation we were having while we were doing it. We never laughed so hard and if you read the article, you’ll soon know why.

But, what are some of your pet peeves when you enlist your friends to help you do anything?

Beer Taps, Table Tops, Beer Pong

How to Build a Home Bar

It’s a part of the beer enthusiast’s life to head out and grab a beer from our favorite drinking hole. We love all kinds of bars. The dive is a relaxing joint while the club is where we can meet new and interesting people.

But, we can’t live out in the bars all the time even though we’d love it. We eventually have to break away and come home to the families and the household responsibilities. That’s why building a home bar makes us feel like home when we’re home.

There are plenty of ways to build your own home bar. You have to use your imagination and creativity. What it boils down to is your personality. Some people like a 50s theme while others like a beach theme. But, those are merely decorations. You have to build the bar first.

Choose Your Space

Choosing the perfect location is sometimes the hardest part. While some people know exactly where the bar should go, others find it difficult to imagine where they would like to have their bar. A basement bar is out of the way and a great location where you get away without technically leaving the home.

It’s smart to put a bar in an unused room or a room that isn’t frequented much. Also, you can add an extension to the house. But if you’re going to go that far, why not just put the bar outside. It’s great for warm weather and in warm weather climates.

Materials

To build the structure, you’ll need 2 x 4s and plywood. You’ll need enough nails and screws to hold it all together. Also, you want finish. I like dark wood finish and polyurethane. But, some people finish in other ways. They’ll use a faux wood finish, wood slats, tile, granite countertops and I’ve even seen wallpaper. It’s up to you and your style. Give it all a thought and decide on what’s perfect for you.

You’ll also need the features. Brass railings look great against a dark wood bar with dark green lighting fixtures. Cabinet doors make it easy for you to finish your bar in style. You can get them at most hardware stores. Round it off with a kegerator for your keg and a cooler for bottles and cans.

Build

If you know how to design and build, you are ready to go to town. If you don’t, find a friend that will help you design so that you will have all the materials you need. Make sure it’s someone who knows how to build or else it’s the blind leading the blind, which can be fun if you have a temperament like mine and nothing gets to you.

But, the easiest bar I have ever seen built was when a friend of mine bought cabinets from the local hardware store. Not cabinet doors like mentioned earlier, but cabinets. He put them side by side, connected them with a countertop and was practically finished building his bar in an hour.

After that, he simply rocked the bar with bar stools, brass railings, dark green lighting fixtures and a kegerator. He purchased a radical cooler for the end of the bar where he puts bottles and cans. A plasma screen is attached to the wall behind the bar and a stereo is wired to it. It’s just about the neatest bar I have ever seen.

Bars are an extension of your personality as a beer enthusiast. If you are serious about your beer, you need a place to put it on display. Whether you brew for yourself or you just like to try new and exotic beers, build your bar soon and start enjoying the beer world with the rest of us.

The Faux Room Separation for Large Rooms

Not all large rooms are the same. But, particularly long rooms can be disconcerting at times. Living room and dining room combinations, long basements and long backrooms are just a few of the particularly large rooms that could use a break somewhere near the middle.

You don’t have to build a wall per se. But, it might be nice to create a faux separation that gives people the impression that one room is divided into two separate distinct areas. A small home bar will do the trick.

Length or Width

The first thing to decide is exactly where you want your faux separation. A room doesn’t necessarily have to be divided down the middle. If one area can be smaller while the other area requires more space, then choose a spot where the appropriate space is allotted to each end of the room.

The next decision to make can be rather difficult. Do you want the bar to jet out from the wall or have the wall as the backdrop? Jetting your bar out from the wall establishes a very distinguishing room separation. But, having the wall as a backdrop creates the same separation with some hiding places for specialty bar accessories.

Build the Bar

No matter which way you decide to orient your bar, it’s going to be easy to build. You can go all out with cabinets, kegerators, coolers, shelving and everything else you can imagine. But, it’s not necessary.

A bar built jetting out from the wall can be built with a simple structure made of 2x4s and plywood. Use wood planks to dress it up, finish with a countertop and place a small refrigerator on the bar against the wall. That’s the easiest that I can design for you.

But, there are some great coolers and small refrigerators that you can get that will stand as high as the bar and can be placed between the bar and the wall. That gives you more counter space. Also, you can get really creative and place a kegerator in the middle that can be reached from both sides. That way, you enjoy draft rather than cans or bottles. Of course, you can always have both.

A bar utilizing the wall as the backdrop is just as easy to build as one jetting out from the wall. But, you will be able to accomplish a little more. A nice array of cabinets for various beer specialty items is perfect for a home bar. Different coolers, refrigerators and kegerators for whatever purpose you might have can be hidden behind the bar as well.

A flat screen television can hang on the wall behind the bar. Lighting can change the entire scene dramatically. The wall itself can be decorated with faux brick, stone or wood and really change the climate of the room.

Sometimes, we just have to break up the monotony. A particularly large room can be boring if you’ve lived in it long enough. Break it up with a home bar and you accomplish two things at once. You create the impression that you have two separate rooms, and you finally get your own home bar.