Looking for a weekend retreat where you can sink a few beers and watch some footy in peace? Or has your holiday left you yearning for a tiki bar where you can lounge the summer evenings away, cocktail in hand?
A garden bar or shed pub is a fantastic feature, offering the escape of your local with all the comforts of home. Low maintenance and versatile, this focal point is perfect whether you want to entertain in style or simply relax in serenity.
Whatever the Weather
Garden bars come in all shapes and sizes to suit a wide range of needs and budgets. However, there’s one thing you can’t control, and that’s the weather. There isn’t much point building a kitted-out cabana bar if you’ll be spending most of the year gazing wistfully through the rain spattered patio doors at it. Think very carefully about what you want from your bar, and about the limitations the local climate will have on that.
What Type of Garden Bar to Build
There’s a garden bar to suit every need! If you’re stuck for space, or are reluctant to put a permanent fixture in your garden, a fold away wall-mounted Murphy bar or portable drinks trolley is the ideal compromise. Putting one of these together is a quick and easy lazy Saturday endeavour, you’ll be chilling out on a recliner enjoying the spoils of your labour in no time!
If you’re looking for something with a little more substance, you could opt for a sheltered beach style bar. These are brilliant for smaller gardens and look amazing on the corner of your patio or tucked away in an unused nook at the end of the lawn.
A bar like this takes a good measure of planning and elbow grease. For support, you will need to dig a foundation, fill with hardcore and compact. The decking base goes on top of this, then the frame is built and the roof and sides added. That’s all before you even think about adding the actual bar and other decorative features. Don’t worry though, it’s a straightforward job once you have the planning right. Enlist the help of a friend and you’ll be rocking your tiki within a weekend.
For a true haven that can be enjoyed all year round, a shed pub is the answer. Wow your friends with a fully equipped bar. Indulge your every whim, be it a modest pool table and dart board combo or a more adventurous Rovers Return replica. When it comes to designing your bar, the sky is the limit.
The beauty of a shed pub is that you can sit back and relax with your drink even when it’s pouring rain outside. However, this also means that you are stuck indoors when weather is glorious, which goes against the entire nature of a garden bar. This can be counteracted with bifolding doors, which open out to the front of your bar to let the sunshine in. Another option would be to add an overhang to the exterior, meaning you can come out and sit in the shade as you quench your thirst.
Building a shed pub is a long-term commitment, not for faint hearted novices. This is an ideal project for shed aficionados, something you can keep upgrading and adding to as time goes by. For an easier option than building from the ground up, you could always buy a pre-built shed and fit the bar yourself. This leaves you with the control and freedom over the interior design, and you can get stuck straight in without the boring initial legwork.
Whether you go for the basic option or decide to go the whole hog with a shed pub, you are guaranteed that your bar will become the social hub of your garden. May you enjoy many years of shedded bliss. Cheers!
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