Home Bar De Bex Construction • Part 2

I'm pretty fired up.

The home bar is really coming together, folks. Having the bar shelves now installed on the wall is making it feel pretty legit. And I can't wait to spring into action. I've been talking about this project for awhile now, and the shelves was that one last big thing to do before getting it all going. And like I said, I'm pretty fired up. To me, having a home bar is more than "a cool thing to have." I mean, hell ya, it's freakin' rad. But I also see it as my little passion workshop. A space that I can experiment, create, photograph, film, educate, and of course, it's fantastic for entertaining guests. There's a part of me that felt like my creative area with drink making and capturing was limited, or just always messy because it was invading so much of the other areas in my house (especially the kitchen). It feels so good to have a home now for Home Bar De Bex. So many exciting things on the horizon.

And for those who have been asking to see more details of the actual bar and shelving specs, how I went about ordering materials, etc. This part's for you:

It's been an experience making this vision a reality. From conception to the final build–my contractor (aka my dad) has really made the project come to life. I've been asked a handful of times if the plans I used for the bar and shelves were bought or custom. I had looked a lot at some bar plans and kits, but a lot of what I was seeing was just slightly off of what I was envisioning. So, yeah, it was a custom job. There are a lot of really cool bar plans out there though. if you're considering building a home bar, some sites I'd recommend checking out for research/inspiration would be: Etsy, Real Cedar, The Spruce Crafts, Rock Solid Rustic, Home Depot ...and YouTube fo sho. A lot of these sites have plans you can download as a PDF too. I think since I had a specific sized space in my living room to work with, a lot of the standard sizing for plans I was finding weren't gonna cut it. And the more I looked at plans and pictures, it made me realize that was and wasn't important to me to have. Like for me, I knew I really wanted a well. That was a must have. And I used a lot of my research to figure out that look and feel I liked best. Did I want paneling to have horizontal or vertical wood? thick, narrow, or a mix wood sizes? gaps or no gaps? What color stain? How far did I want the bar top to extend over? What was the height difference I needed between my shelves in the bar? Did I need a cabinet? Hooks? What all am I storing in my bar outside of bottles and glassware? Going on a deep dive of what was out there helped me figure out what vibe I wanted to go with. And I guess in the end, I could have bought a plan and adjusted it, but I didn't so oh well haha.

To be honest though, the build I did for my bar isn't that complex (especially since I don't have a water hook up and I'm not trying to accommodate seating/guests drinking at the bar. It's pretty much a 2 shelved bar with tray buckets for ice and dumping, a cutout bar top made from a butcher block, and it's all on wheels just in case it needs to become a getaway bar. The wall shelves are made of metal piping–there are all just screwed together and then mounted, with redwood shelves. Then I stained all the redwood to make it match as closely to the butcher block bar top I had as possible. But if you want to get into some more details on the specs - I have that all listed below:

The bar shelves:

There are so many places you can get kits or custom pipe orders/build for you. My dad and I found it easiest and cheapest to simply buy the parts individually from Home Depot and construct it ourselves. Dimensions for my shelves are about W: 6'6" x H: 3'6" x D: 6". If I had the space in my home, I would have definitely made the depth of my shelves a lot deeper. What I would have done is doubled the depth to 12" to fit more bottles and allow a bit more room for them as well. But having the depth at 6" I was able to use standard 6" x 8' pieces of redwood from the lumber yard, and only needing to trip down length wise. I figured a general standard height of most of my bottles were about 12", so I made that the distance between the shelves. I had a small handful that are taller than that, but I just have those stored on the top shelf or on the bottom shelf of the bar. I know those bottles aren't technically "top shelf material" but hey, not everything can be like a "real bar."

My Shelves Kit Breakdown:

Next steps in the Home Bar STUFF:

  • Give the front and side wood panels of the bar another coat stain, I think I went too light

  • Add hanging stem glassware racks to put under the bottom shelf

  • Organize and create the flow for me. I haven’t quite figured out how I want to organize the bottles on the shelves and how I want to place the categories. I also need to create a better system for my gear and bitters layout.

  • Get mini fridge for ice and syrups. I currently have a 8 bottle fridge for my wine storage, that’s tucked between the bar and wall shelves–but I think I need another one for ice and syrups, so I don’t have to keep making trips to the kitchen when folks are in town.

  • Service Window. My bar is next to a window that goes to our back deck. And even though the bar is on wheels to take outside, I thought it may be nice to not have to sometimes...so the idea is to remove the screen from the window and turn it into a service window for passing drinks to those in the sunshine.

  • Artwork! Clearly, there’s a lot of art going on - but I need to reconstruct what I got going on to fit the space better, and decide what to put in the little blank spot above the window by the bar.

  • Bar de Bex sign - Definitely need some kind of bar sign with my name….I’m thinking a plank of wood with Bar de Bex carved out of it? We shall see. Open to ideas - send them my way!

  • More? Probably.

Becca WyantComment