Outdoor Patio Bar Designs
Sunday, August 01, 2010

I am totally a measure twice, cut once guy, so in order to build my poolside bar, I was going to need some outdoor patio bar designs.  Let me clarify that a little bit, I would like to be a measure twice cut once guy and that’s totally the goal.  But things always pop up or interrupt me or somehow make my projects go less than smoothly.  So in reality, I wind up measuring and cutting as many times as it takes to get the job done and I’m fine with that. 

That being said, I always start my projects with the best intentions and that means having some good plans to work from.  A great way to get ideas is to do an image search for Outdoor Patio Bar Designs in Google.  There are people out there with some awesome outdoor bars. The problem is that they almost definitely paid an awesome amount of money for them too.  Since I’m looking for more of a handy man special, I checked out the HGTV, DIYNetwork, Home Depot & Lowes websites.  I needed to find a project that I could do by myself.  When you watch those design makeover shows, they start from zero and create a backyard oasis in 30 minutes. Conveniently off screen is the crew that took a few days to make it happen.

I found what I was looking for at the Lowes Creative Ideas site.  It’s called the Watch and Work Outdoor Kitchen Island and with a few modifications it will become my outdoor patio bar design. 

Outdoor Patio Bar under construction

The first modification is to make it taller.  Average bar height is usually between 41 and 43 inches.  Since this is an outdoor kitchen island, it was too low.  And since the space of my patio could handle a larger structure, I also decided to almost double the length.  What good is a bar if only a few people can enjoy it at a time.  The next change I made to the design was to beef up the slats.  The plans call for 1x6 lumber but I decided to go with deck planking (5/4”) instead. 

There won’t be any running water in this bar and if I need to power the mini fridge that I plan on putting in it, I’ll have to run an extension cord.  Like I mentioned before, my budget isn’t in the awesome category but I think that this bar will do just fine. 

With those changes made to the design and the gung-ho attitude that I always have at the beginning of my projects I was ready to go. 

Posted by Anthony 6:07 AM  

Labels: Outdoor Patio Bar

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