How to Create a Coffee Bar and make it Amazing!

We had a built in desk in a hallway and I’ll show you how we turned it into a coffee bar and how we made the design decisions!

Do you see all these cute spaces in homes dedicated to a wine bar or a coffee bar? It can be a full blown built in space or it can be a cart or shelf that’s dedicated to one purpose and either one is a great idea!

We have a wine “area” in our home. It’s not super functional as it is right now but it’s one the demo list so that’s going to be an upcoming project.

What I do have (or did have) is a built in desk area in a hallway. I’m not sure that the location was ever a great area to have a desk, there’s no natural light in this hallway and it’s tile with tall ceilings so you get an echo and also a cave effect.

It’s right outside of our pantry, and ironically, our home office!

It was begging for us to make it into a more useful space for our family!

Coffee Bar Ideas

Before I could make any kind of a plan I had to spend some time looking for inspiration.

What I really wanted in the space was an under counter refrigerator that was just for beverages.

Well really just to keep my Topo Chico’s cold. I love sparkling water in a glass bottle and I want a refrigerator full of them.

I’ll leave space for some other drinks as well, but that was my main goal.

So it started as more of a beverage station than a coffee bar when we started.

But here are a few of the inspiration photo’s that I found on Pinterest.

And you can see that my problem was there are some beautiful images, but not a lot of colorful designs. And that’s a problem for me.

The Desk Turned into a Coffee Bar

The before coffee bar is a desk area with black cabinets over and under the writing surface. — The desk area that’s going to become a coffee bar.

Here is the before of this area. We already had beautiful cabinetry that was built in so I was looking for a way to incorporate or reuse what was already existing and not have to purchase or build new cabinetry.

Of course since everything was at desk height it was all a little too low. So the first step was to redesign and the second step was to raise it all up.

We built a base for the bottom cabinets and set them on it so that they’d be the height of our kitchen cabinets. We also raised the upper cabinets so that we could place a decorative shelf underneath them.

I really wanted to replace the granite counter top as well, but when I priced out a new countertop I really did not want to spend the money. So we decided to work around the surface that we already own.

There are so many other fun things I want to do to our house so keeping that countertop will allow me to spend that money in another spot. Likely a spot that our guests see, not just my family!

The area where the coffee bar will be after the existing cabinets were removed. — When we took all the cabinets down we can see the original paint color behind them.

How I Chose Pink Tiles and the Dilemma

I started all the way at the beginning saying that I wanted to do a pink backsplash in this area and I never wavered from it.

What did change was that when I decided to reuse the granite, all my colors were wrong.

The pinks that I had been looking at were much lighter and had cooler undertones and the granite that we have is a very bold pattern and very gold. Trying to find a pink that will compliment a yellow, not so easy.

So the project sat for a bit. I had to spend some time getting my mind around a new design so I moved on with other projects for awhile. The weather was nice so I worked outdoors.

Then it got hot outside.

I mean really hot, we had a couple of days in a row where it was 106-107 degrees and miserable. Which means we were back to indoor projects.

And back to my husband asking when I was planning to finish this project!

Progress on the coffee bar — We’ve installed the drink fridge and reinstalled the cabinets. At this point it looks very similar to the before, only everything is taller.

Picking Pink Paint

If you haven’t checked the “oops” section at your paint store I highly recommend it.

I also might spend way too much time in the paint section, or even in my favorite store anyway, so I check it often.

I found some really fun pink paint for a huge discount and decided to use it for my cabinets.

Pink paint chips and tile ideas for the coffee bar.

In the back of my head I knew it wasn’t the right color but I wanted it to be. I really just wanted it to be that easy. So I painted.

And I did not like it at all.

It was too cool, too dainty and did not look good with the granite or the tile.

The first shade of pink that was far too pale. — The first shade of pink was too pale for this space

So back to the drawing board!

I chose a deeper shade of pink and my husband chose Cola Red for the bottom portion. I felt like the bottom needed to be darker so it would look more substantial and the red is the perfect combination in this space.