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Whether you’re a tea drinker or a coffee fiend, it’s nice to have a designated area for your morning routine. 

Cultivating the perfect at-home coffee bar will help you start your day on the right foot!

At Deslaurier, we have over 40 years of experience manufacturing custom cabinets and providing kitchen design expertise to our clients. In that time, we’ve designed and installed plenty of home coffee bar designs, tailoring each project to the homeowner’s individual needs. 

For this article, we enlisted the expertise of Deslaurier Designer, Darien Wilson, to help provide 6 design ideas she likes to implement when creating the perfect at-home coffee bar.

Let’s get started!

1. Differentiate it From the Kitchen

Whether your coffee bar is attached to your kitchen or off on its own, it gives you the chance to get creative and mix it up from the kitchen’s overall design. 

For the most part, foundational design elements – door style, mouldings, etc. – will remain the same as the kitchen. Aside from that, it’s great to mix it up and add or change features to make the coffee bar its own unique space. 

I like to actually make the coffee bar a little different than the kitchen. Whether it’s changing the backsplash or countertop, or adding a new colour; just having a little fun with that area”  – Darien Wilson, Desaurier Designer 

Maybe you add a new colour to the base cabinets, or even include a wood tone that isn’t included in the kitchen. Even changing the cabinet handles – something that may seem like an insignificant alteration – can make a big impact in cultivating a distinct area. 

A backsplash is one of the most prominent ways to differentiate from the kitchen. If there’s quartz backsplash throughout the kitchen, your coffee bar offers a great opportunity for a funky, mosaic tile. 

Your backsplash is an eye-catching feature that will really help to make your coffee bar stand out as its own unique space.

2. Keep Upper Storage Light & Airy

A coffee bar should be a calming space with a light and gentle atmosphere. A lot of that can come from how you’ve designed the upper storage. 

The best way to achieve this is by using floating shelves rather than just a wall full of bulky cabinet boxes. 

When it comes to visual design, floating shelving can help make a smaller room feel larger and more open. Particularly in a contained area like a home coffee bar, floating shelves provide convenient storage with open and immediate access, while maximizing the available space. 

Further, one of the most endearing qualities of shelving is the visual appeal of presenting beautiful objects and ornamentation. If you are a very tidy, organized person, your coffee bar will thrive with floating shelves.

Shelves let you display your collection of coffee and tea mugs, or show off your unique homemade coffee accessories. They’re also a great place to add warmth and personalized charm with some of your favourite cookbooks, plants, and flowers, or even pictures and artwork.

3. Add Subtle Task Lighting

While it’s always great to have under cabinet lighting, you don’t necessarily need it for a coffee bar located in the kitchen. The kitchen is often the most well-lit room in the home and you’ll only want a small bit of added lighting. 

The perfect place for that? Built-in to the floating shelves! 

“I would definitely include puck lighting in the floating shelves”                             - Darien Wilson

Floating shelves are the perfect storage feature to pair with subtle, built-in task lighting for the coffee bar countertop. The puck lights install right inside the shelf, and their lighting is subtle enough to offer surface task lighting without being overwhelming.

4. Show Off Your Coffee Machine

A coffee bar can be a large investment in your home, so you might as well show off why you got it! 

Whether you have a coffee maker or a luxurious espresso machine, keeping them presented on your countertop is a nice touch having your coffee bar show its “purpose”. 

“They’re usually expensive and beautiful and it’s nice to have that be displayed on the countertop.”  – Darien Wilson

Some homeowners may even opt to go further and install coffee machines built-in to the cabinetry as well! 

Whichever your placement you prefer, you’re going to want to keep the coffee machine out in the open.

5. Include an Appliance Garage

An appliance garage lets you gain a convenient space on your countertop to stow all of those daily-use items, like coffee grinders and kettles. Appliance garages come in different sizes, so you can choose to hide away one, two, three, or more appliances at a time. 

If you plan on making your coffee bar area into a breakfast nook, so to speak, then it’s the perfect spot to hide away a small toaster or bagel slicer. 

Having an appliance garage allows for an area to hide those smaller countertop accessories you use so often, without having to take them in and out of drawer storage for every use.

6. Cabinet Accessories: Less is More

There are few things in a kitchen that are as important as functional cabinet accessories. They offer organized storage for your kitchen items and make it easier to access spices, oils, and utensils while you’re cooking. 

When it comes to your coffee area, however, the fewer built-in accessories, the better. Your coffee bar isn’t in need of spice racks and knife blocks, so keeping drawer space wide open and unrestricted will allow for valuable extra storage.

Especially if you want to save countertop space and aren’t including an appliance garage, spacious drawers will be needed to store your coffee accessories and small appliances.

Design with Deslaurier Custom Cabinets

Are you looking to design the perfect coffee bar for your home? 

Deslaurier Custom Cabinets has everything you need! Book a consultation today with a Deslaurier design expert at our Ottawa Showroom or schedule a virtual meeting! 

If you have your eye on custom cabinetry, Deslaurier Custom Cabinets has everything you need. With over 40 years of experience to our name, we provide our clients with a fully customized design process with our talented team of designers. 

Interested in becoming an authorized Deslaurier dealer? Visit our Become a Dealer page to learn more! Live outside the area? Find a Dealer to connect with a Deslaurier dealer near you!