Going out to parties, clubs, pubs, and bars can make for a fun night out with friends. Everybody deserves a bit of excitement every now and again to compensate for all those work days and all-nighters you’ve spent just stressing out.
Running out to go bar-hopping to get a bunch of drunks with your best mates is an adventure for everyone, so long as they’re of legal age. It’s been said before that some of your best nights are those that you can barely remember the day after.
Nights out of the house spent inebriated can cause you a lot of trouble, and certainly might put you in danger. If you’re not careful with the amount of alcohol that you take in, you may end up hurting yourself or even other people.
Not only that, but drinks at bars are deathly expensive! Of course, these establishments need to turn up a profit, so the drinks you get from them are far more costly than they would’ve been if you had bought the drinks fresh off the shelves yourself.
Well, if that’s the case, why not take the full bar experience and bring it back inside the safety of your own home?
Living Room Bar
To ensure not only your safety but also the integrity of your wallet, you may want to hop onto the growing trend in modern homes of having a living room bar.
As posh as this may sound, it’s a superb choice for anyone who’s interested in bringing the thrill of nights out back at home while saving yourself the danger and the cost.
But before we dive into what ideas and possibilities you can consider when you insert into your living room a functioning bar, there may be some lingering doubts. To quell any of your fears, let’s begin with the benefits.
Benefits of a Living Room Bar
Below are some of the benefits that you may want to consider if you’re still on the fence about having a living room bar.
1. The Comforts of Home
Nothing beats the relaxation you can get in your own home. Even the most extravagant hotels can’t compare to the house you’ve come to own. If you’ve ever been out of your home for too long, you would know the gravity of homesickness.
Because of this, bringing the bar experience right into your living space ensures you enjoy both the thrill of sharing good drinks with good friends without having to feel uncomfortable with the space you’re in.
Add to that the excitement of inviting your friends over. Having your friends come together in your home and hosting the fun yourself is an experience that everyone should try even well beyond their college years.
2. The Freedom of Custom Drinks
Drinks bought at the bar are enticing. There’s a wide array of different mixes to choose from, it’s like a candy store to an adult! But let’s be honest, you’re not going to try all of those drinks. You’re going to have a favorite mix or particular favorite kind of alcohol, and you’re going to stick to that.
There’s no need to opt for an extravagant selection of drinks. What’s more, thanks to the fact that with a living room bar, you’ll be the one mixing your drinks, you have unlimited potential! There is a freedom that comes with being able to create your own mixes.
3. Easy Snacks
When you go to a pub or a club, you’re not just there for the drinks. You’re not just there to pick up a one-night stand, either. For appetizers in between shots, you’re going to want to buy sides and snacks as well. The problem? Just like drinks, those establishments often bump up the price of their snacks as well.
If you’ve opted for the superb idea of having a living room bar and brought the bar experience right into your home, you won’t have to worry about spending too much on such a minuscule amount of finger food!
Chances are, your pantry is already filled with snacks galore. With a living room bar, you and your guests can simply pull open the fridge or rummage through the cupboards and you can find snacks all on your own. If not, you can even make it a fun instruction for your friends to contribute to the snacks you’ll eat.
Problems with a Living Room Bar
Making your nightly hangouts with friends cheap and cost-effective has never been easier. But of course, like most things, having your own living room bar comes with its own set of costs. Below are things that you definitely should consider before thinking about setting up a living room bar.
1.Kids Around
If you’re a homeowner who lives with kids or other family members who aren’t of legal age, having clear and easy access to alcoholic drinks may prove to not only be irresponsible but also harmful. Especially when you’re living with teenagers who grow curious about adult life as the days pass by, you’re going to want to think heavily about this decision.
Of course, you can always opt for a living room bar design that keeps your drinks away from minors’ hands and hidden from children’s line of sight.
2. Making a Mess
You can never truly get rid of the clumsiness of drunken men and women. Even in the safety of your own home, inebriated adults will still prove themselves to be a danger to themselves and to other people.
If things get too wild and you and your guests get too rowdy, it won’t just be you and your friends’ health on the line, but the integrity of your house as well. If you’re not careful with how you host your night together, you might wake up the following morning with vomit on the carpet and a handful of shattered windows.
3. Limited Entertainment
As much as you can pull out your biggest guns, turn on your loudest set of speakers or set up your best movies on Netflix, there is no beating the kind of entertainment that a real bar can afford. Unless one of your friends is a professional DJ and can bring an entire kit with them, there’s no way you can best the entertainment available at a real bar.
But of course, there’s also room for creativity. Even though you can’t replicate the fun of a bar completely, the home experience makes room for different kinds of fun that you can’t do in a real bar. For instance, you and your friends can play board games together without worrying about loud noises from rowdy strangers.
Solutions to a Living Room Bar
If you’re on the lookout for ideas that you can use to spice up your living room and make room for a little alcohol, then check these out!
Keep it Simple
Perhaps you want to keep it simple. Not as extravagant as an entire wine cellar that only the richest of the rich can afford—just something you can already do with a few paint jobs here and there or a new piece of furniture.
Cabinet
Chances are, you already have a bit of unused space in your cabinets at home. If you do, you can quickly refurbish that empty space into something you can use!
Whether it’s a cabinet that used to house fine china or made to store your collection of books, you can easily use what space you have on there to keep your precious alcoholic beverages safe and tidy.
If you want more pizzazz, you can dedicate an entire cabinet to your liquor and set up lights inside for that extra bar-like feel.
Customize the look of your cabinet and you’ll be sure to feel like you’re in the hottest bar in town, right in the comfort of your own home.
Rack
If you want something a little more decorative then you can try putting up a hanging rack as shown above!
Just be sure that when you’re setting this up, that your rack is bolted right into the wall. You wouldn’t want all that alcohol to break, spill, and leave a mess.
If you feel unsure and unsafe about a bunch of breakable glass bottles hanging on your wall, you can easily apply the same idea except a lot lower on the ground.
Cart
This is one of the more decorative ideas that is an excellent way to show personality in your living room.
Rather than making use of already existing living room furniture, try and look for a serving cart that you can make sit somewhere in your living space.
This is the perfect choice out of all these on the list if you’re intending for a more entertaining way of introducing drinks to your guests.
Not only that, but it’s also a surefire way to add flavor and personality into your living room! Set it up in a corner just like you would any piece of decor and it’s guaranteed to fit right in.
Shelf
This is the idea of simplicity at its finest. If you don’t already have one, you can run-up to the local store and look for simple small shelves that can easily snugly fit within your living room quarters.
All you have to do is set it beside your couch, fill it with drinks, and wait for the next get-together to make full use of it.
Fridge
Mini fridges are relatively inexpensive and can keep your hard liquor chilled to the perfect temperature.
You can even add your mini-fridge filled with ice-cold wine and liquor into a section of your kitchen, like the image above!
This is an especially superb choice for those living in more arid and warm regions who want to keep their drinks ice cold.
Tabletop
If you really want to keep in simple, then don’t bother storing your liquor in dedicated cabinets and drawers.
Leaving them out in the open laid out atop the tabletop adds subtly to the ambiance in the room.
This is the perfect option for any homeowner who lives alone or with their spouse. If you’re living with kids, you may want to reconsider this option.
Keep It Hidden
If you’re someone who doesn’t want to be so showy and prefer to keep it a lot more hidden than to be kept in cabinets and stacked on the wall, there’s still a choice for you.
That being said, it’s probably going to cost you a lot more money than all the previous options.
Cellar
Try and look for a room in your home that’s left vacant. An unused waste of space is the perfect opportunity to dedicate that space into a cellar for your wine or other alcoholic drinks.
This can be one of the most expensive renovations you can pull off in your home but it’s a guaranteed way to level up your living room bar game. Surprise your guests by leading them straight into a room filled with nothing but mouth-watering liquor.
This is a wonderful option for those who have the room and the budget to afford a bigger space dedicated to their home bar, and those who want to have a larger selection of drinks to choose from. Go crazy with what you put in here.
There is truly nothing that can compete with the safety and comfort of your own home. And if you can bring the fun and adventure of a night out back into your home, then why not have a living room bar?
These ideas and so much more are widely available for you to be inspired from, so get creative. Drink responsibly!
