There is no substitute for having a bar in your home.
It's your bar away from your favorite bar.
It's the place you call home when you're home.
But, you don't always have to go all out with brand new bar plans that you have to totally build yourself.
Converting furniture or accessories that have another purpose into a bar is actually fun when you put your mind to it.
You don't have as many supplies to get.
Plus, you give unwanted or discarded accessories new life.
Kitchen Cabinets Kitchen cabinets can be the start of a great bar.
I've been to a friend's house where he just had the kitchen cabinets redone and he had the old ones in the garage.
Those are perfect for starting a home bar.
We built him one right there in his garage.
We told the wives what we were up to and they waved us on without a problem.
So we went to town, and I mean we went to town.
We picked up some wood and finish, made a beer run while we were there.
Then, we went to work on my friend's new bar.
It didn't require much.
We put on a countertop and connected the cabinets in the front of the bar so that there wasn't any space.
We drilled a hole in the countertop and ran the make shit beer tap through it.
The keg sat perfectly in the gap between the kitchen cabinets.
A few weeks later, my friend had a kegerator and the bar looked great with bar stools, track lighting and even some beer signs around.
It's one of my favorite home bars to go to when I'm getting away from my own.
The Tall Dresser Actually, this is one of the most unique conversions I have ever seen.
This idea comes from another friend of mine who had a tall dresser with cabinet doors on the top half of the unit that swung open outward.
He took the bottom three drawers out of his dresser and removed the front of each dresser drawer.
Then, he attached those pieces back to the front of the dresser.
The space behind was enough for a keg when everything else was removed.
The beer tap extended above the bottom half of the dresser and he removed some of the shelves because there were shelves in the cabinet doors that swung open.
It was a beautiful bar he placed in his backroom.
You didn't even know it was a bar until he swung open those cabinet drawers.
The Rock Bar This bar was built purely out of frustration one day when a friend of mine had enough of his wife's rock garden.
She had finished her beautiful rock garden months ago.
But, there was a pile of rocks, excess of the project.
When he asked her what she planned on doing with them, she didn't have an answer.
So, he came up with one.
He actually built a bar from those rocks.
He had to get a few more to finish the project.
But, it came out really nice.
He built a rock base with two outer rock walls and two inner rock walls to hold up the top.
But, that's where he got even more interesting.
He made shelves along the way and he made the bar top with wood that he finished with lacquer.
He's had it several years now and it has stood the test of time.
He just treats the wood every once in awhile.
A job he can do in about an hour while he's sipping a beer.
Can't beat that! So, before you throw anything away try to figure out what you can do with it.
It doesn't always have to be made into a bar.
But, that's the way I look at things.