Your backyard is your summer’s best bar and lounge. My suggestion is to make a backyard bar shed.
First thing you need, a shed. A decent, wooden one (premade) can range anywhere from $1000 to $3000 depending on how large you want it.
Now the fun part, designing the interior of your bar. You’ll need to consider the basics: flooring, wall paneling, paint, outdoor/indoor lighting fixtures, furniture, wall décor, and anything you want your personalized pub to look like. Perhaps watching all those episodes of Cheers is finally paying off?
Then, check out Home Depot for flooring and lighting (which means you’ll need power access in your shed). But little things like stringed lights can be purchased almost anywhere and give your backyard a nightly enchantment for your get together.
Use old furniture from your wannabe man-cave or furniture your wife wanted you to get rid of upon the two of you moving in together. The more eclectic, the more genuine bar-feel you’ll make. Wall décor is really up to you. Dart board? Old license plates? Shelves to showcase your liquor? Just don’t forget to mount a bottle opener on the wall.
The bar itself can be purchased or made. Consider finishing the bar top with a glazed-penny top. You may want to design it around being able to tuck a small fridge on the “serving” side of your bar as not to take up anymore square footage of your shed. Or hire a commercial painting company
Honestly, the most expensive part of your backyard bar shed is the booze!
To accent the rest of your backyard bar, consider putting a dining table outside and adorn your backyard with string lights.
String lights are one of the cheapest and most effective ways of sprucing up an outside patio area. And no, they are not limited to stringing them on the rim of your home’s roof.
- Drape string lights across your backyard’s fence. If you have a garden or plush bushes consider pushing them into the foliage so you get a light, earthy glow from the ground. You can even place them in large potted plants.
- Remember those strung beads people (myself included) hung in doorways? Consider making one of those “rain fall” effects with string lights. No, it doesn’t have to be in a doorway. I would drape them either against a wall, a fence, or even hanging from a long tree branch.
- If your home doesn’t have a fence but you still want the look of string lights around a fence, purchase Tiki poles or basic wooden poles that can purchased from any home improvement store and drive them into the ground. You can now string your lights from pole to pole around whatever your center focus is- an outside dinner table perhaps?
- Trees are obviously beautiful homes to string lights. Wrap them around the trunk, wrap them around the leaves, string them from branches, just design your lights according to any type of tress you may have in your backyard. Or, string them across your pool if you have one! Just make sure to check for swimming pool leaks, as getting your lights wet is a sure no-no!
- You can always get creative too. Take baskets, paper lanterns, even glass vases and fill them with string lights. These various containers will give off soft illumination for a whimsical- looking backyard. You can also place them or hang them from anywhere in your backyard.
You can always go a step further and hire a landscape design or lawn care company to make sure your hedges, shrubs and lawn are in “show-off” condition.
