10 Cheap Home Bar Ideas On a Budget - Inexpensive Home Bar Designs Ideas in 2023 (2023)

If you’re looking for the best home bar ideas on a budget, then look no further! In this blog, we’ve listed the top 10 inexpensive home bar design ideas including details such as design name, benefits, how to guide, and more.

Before we dive into this list of home bar ideas on a budget, allow me to help you understand the importance and benefits of having a perfect home bar with low budget 💰

If you’ve been dreaming about having a bar in your home, get started. You don’t need a contractor to be the expert on the job. That could take weeks when you could have one built in a day.

Do some research 🧐 and give yourself an idea of what you want.

Then, put the plan into motion by piecing together the different materials you’ll need. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to build your own home bar.

Blend or Standout Home Bar

Depending on where you decide to put your inexpensive home bar, you might want to think about making it blend with the rest of your home or making it standout.

If you are putting it in a room all its own, it can easily be designed to standout.

But if it happens to be between two rooms where company roaming through is a very real possibility, then making it blend with the rest of your décor is a good idea.

In a room all its own, a bar looks great with a brick or wood décor. But, those aren’t the only two options.

Some bars I’ve seen have had been finished in drywall. The rest of the décor was dressed with beer signs and beer mirrors.

But for the other choices, definitely a faux brick or faux wood finish would look great and it wouldn’t damage the budget.

The Home Bar On a Budget 💰

The bar can easily be framed with 2 x 4s. Cover it with plywood.

Then, finish. It really doesn’t get any more difficult than that. But, it does depend on how intricate you try to get.

Any local department store or hardware store should have cabinet doors you can use for the bar when you are finished.

Build your frame. Then as I said before, nail the plywood to your frame. At this point, it’s up to you what you want to do.

I have finished off a bar with interlocking wood panels that I attached diagonally.

Then, I used border to make eye catching designs that brought a touch of professionalism to the bar.

Once the bar is built and the cabinets are finished to match the bar, a few coats of lacquer can bring out a beautiful glossy finish.

Now all you need are some home bar stools on a budget and track lighting before you begin to decorate the rest.

Home Décor with Home Bar On a Budget

Have you ever thought about your local bar and wondered where they got their decorations?

The beer signs and the beer mirrors are either funny, authentic, or just plain eye catching.

The beer taps are name brand and always have unique designs. The beer glasses are also name brand and in all different shapes and sizes.

One thing about having your own home bar on a budget is the challenge of finding great collector’s items to put on display.

Once your bar is done, now your hunt begins. Don’t go for junk just to cover the walls. Find things that bring out your personality. It’s your bar. It should be all about you.

Great Uses For Your Home Bar On a Budget

We all know that we are supposed to drink in the inexpensive home bar idea. In fact, that’s the first thing we do. We crack open a beer. Then, we invite our friends.

But after you have put so much time and energy into creating the perfect home bar on a budget, you’ll soon find that there are so many more uses for it than watching the game and drinking with your friends.

Normally, among friends there will come a time when you have a disagreement about something. Who won Superbowl XIV?

What’s the difference between empathy and apathy?

Who was the kid in that movie with the duck? When it comes to questions as probing as these, it’s time to take it to the best venue you can find.

Housing Debates

Take everyone to your inexpensive home bar and pose the question. Make sure that you word the question exactly as it was first worded or that could become another contention for debate.

Once the question has been posed and everyone is ready, dive in and let it get juicy. Your bar can handle it

Normally, among friends there will be a need to compete. Who is the better arm wrestler?

Who can pronounce onomatopoeia?

Whose girlfriend is the best looking?

That last competition should be left up to them to bring up among themselves. Friends should never compete amongst themselves over how hot their girlfriends are.

Having Contests

When it has been established that there will indeed be a competition, march everyone into your home bar idea on a budget and go over the rules. Don’t really worry about the rules. Make them up as you go along. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

Normally, among friends there will be a time when the deepest areas of your minds will be picked. Why did they discontinue the Studebaker Avanti?

Why does cold beer taste best?

Where did we get the idea that Humpty Dumpty was an egg?

The living room doesn’t have what your cheap home bar has for questions such as these.

Philosophical Discussions

When such a deep, probing question is introduced among your friends, even when it’s just you and you have to call your friends to get them intrigued, the best place to have a discussion of this sort is in your inexpensive home bar.

Questions like these tend to grow into other equally interesting conversations. So, make sure there is enough beer and let the conversations begin.

Your inexpensive home bar is where your friends are going to want to meet and watch the game. Sometimes you are going to have to be the host to some great parties.

But, don’t stop there. You can use your home bar idea on a budget for virtually everything. Nay, everything. I don’t know why you would ever need the rest of the house.

How To Build Your Home Bar On a Budget ❓

Too often people look at their inexpensive home bar as a piece of furniture rather than a part of the room.

This is evident when you see people planning a design for a new home bar idea on a budget.

Rather than trying to figure out how to fit the bar into a space, determine how to make the space the bar.

Confused? 🤔

Don’t be, it isn’t as difficult as it sounds.

The most important thing is selecting the right design. Take care of this first and you will save in costs.

You must also consider location. You will need electrical power and water. You might decide to choose a location in your home where these two already exist to cut down on construction costs.

If there is no water or power source, you will have to route them to the location.

Corners often make great locations to build a bar in.

You can usually save some money by installing a bar in a corner of your home since you will only need to construct two bar tops instead of three or four.

Then you can use the two walls for custom cabinetry and design elements.

The counter is the main structure of the bar and probably the element you should focus on at first. On the inside you should take advantage of space under the bar for storage of glasses, drinks, and other items.

On the outside consider installing bar rails. Your guests will appreciate bar rails as a place to rest their feet. You can use wood or steel for the rails, it is a matter of personal preference.

Selecting bar stools will come next. There are many different styles of bar stools available. If you want a retry style bar, you can find stools to match. Big sports fan? You can find stools with your favorite team’s logo.

Do you want stationary chairs, or do you think your guests will have fun spinning around in a swivel chair? Select the chairs that match your design and make you happy.

What To Do With Your Cheap Home Bar 🏠

I just recently walked into a retired couple’s home that they had bought in a retirement community. The home was a modular with what they call two Florida rooms. They sit in the front one, but the husband has an idea that he would like to turn his other Florida room into a bar.

He asked me a lot of questions about how he could go about getting certain things done. So, I thought I’d share the information because others might have the same questions. These are the answers I gave him for setting up a bar in his home.

First of all, the house came with an actual bar and two bar stools. It is useful, but it needs some modifications. We’ll come back to that a little later. But for now, at least you know where we started.

The first thing I thought he needed was some bar lights and signs. He has large windows along one entire side and then two large windows on either side of the door in the front.

At night, bar lights would shine throughout the place and give ambiance to visitors outside. Bar signs and mirrors finish the look of a bar. No bar should be without at least a beer sign and a beer light.

Then, we talked about putting a poker table in the middle of the room. A poker table adds so much authenticity to a inexpensive home bar.

If you find the right kind of poker table, it can turn into a regular table by day and a full fledged casino by night. A deck of cards, cigars and a round of beers is what a low budget home bar is all about.

The final item we discussed was how to get beer in the bar. You might think that’s a funny question. But, the fact is that there literally are hundreds of options. We needed to discuss each one and get a feel for which option would be better.

The first option we discussed was the kegerator. A kegerator will hold your beer keg and keep it cold while having a beer tap on the top for smooth pouring. They work great in about any situation. But, we still needed to explore other options.

The next option we discussed was to simply put a small refrigerator behind the bar. That would make it easier because to stock the bar would only take a trip to the store for a few cases of beer.

But, I happened to notice that he had a thin wall behind the bar. There was a storage facility in the backroom and that gave me a great idea.

Put the keg cooler behind the wall and run a line through it for the beer tap. The beer tap can be place on the wall and you have smooth flowing beer from the beer keg. He went for that idea.

Any room can be made into a bar. You just need to have some imagination and be ready to use it. I’ve seen some of the most unique inexpensive home bar designs on a budget and if you want to go all out, feel free.

But, a few changes can turn a room into your own home bar within a matter of minutes.

How to Have the Perfect Home Bar On a Budget 👌

A lot of people are now starting to entertain their friends at their homes rather than go out to clubs to socialize with them.

The economy has made this a growing trend, because the cost of a night out at a club has become unaffordable to a lot of people.

Of course people have also realized that entertaining their friends in their home allows them to have a more private time, and they do not have to be on the roads after having a few drinks.

The problem for the majority of people is that they do not know how to have the perfect inexpensive home bar. There is no way that the homeowner can have every liquor option that a commercial bar has.

What they really do not realize is that this large choice of liquors, and drink combinations is not really necessary to have the perfect home bar on a budget.

The perfect home bar idea on a budget will have the drinks that you and your friends enjoy, and will not try to cover every known drink.

Most people tend to stick to the same types of drinks as their friends. You will find that among a group of individuals 8 out of ten of them will drink the same type of drink and the ones who do not usually drink that drink will generally be open to trying something new if their friends enjoy it.

So you should set a budget for how much money you are willing to spend to stock your perfect home bar ideas within a budget, and then go to the local market and purchase some of your favorites.

You can always buy special ingredients on the occasion that you want something different, but for the staples you need to stick to two or three of the drinks that are most popular among your group of friends.

Make certain that you stock plenty of mixers such as soda, lemon, water and fruit mixers. It is usually a good idea to have a nice white wine on hand, and have plenty of non-alcoholic selections for the designated drivers in your group.

Remember when you have a gathering where alcohol is served that friends do not let friends drive drunk. Establish this point before anyone begins to drink, and enforce the point if your friend has been drinking.

It will be a better outcome for you both if your friend stays put until they have gotten the alcohol out of their system, or that they ride with someone who is sober, and retrieve their vehicle the next day.

List of 10 Amazing DIY Home Bar Ideas On a Budget 💸

1. Barnyard Bar On a Budget

2. Sweet Escape Home Bar On a Budget

3. Inexpensive Colonial Creation Home Bar

4. Beach House Home Bar Design On a Budget

5. Cheap Outside In Home Bar Design

6. Simple Touch Home Bar Design Idea Within Budget

7. Inexpensive Wood-paneled Pantry Home Bar Idea

8. Affordable Navy Neutrals Home Bar

9. Nuit Blanche White Wet Home Bar

10. Cheap Marble Perfection Home Bar Idea

11. Maximalist Tendencies Home Bar in Low Budget

The Benefits of an Inexpensive Home Bar

If you find that your home tends to be the gathering place for your family and friends, you enjoy entertaining and throwing parties, or you have a supply of many different types of alcohol, drink mixers, and accessories with no good place to store them, then adding a home bar is the perfect thing for you.

You get to set the scene

Have you ever gone out to a bar to catch up with friends, only to find that you couldn’t have a real conversation because it was too loud?

Or that you just couldn’t stand the kind of music they were playing?

Have you ever gone out to a bar after a long week to savor one of your favorite beers, only to find they didn’t carry the brand you wanted?

You get to set the scene at your inexpensive home bar. You get to choose the music, the volume, the drinks, and the ambiance. And most importantly, your favorite beer is always on tap at YOUR bar!

Your guests feel like they belong

A dedicated entertainment space in your home shows that you really love entertaining and enjoy having people in your home. It gives your guests their own space and creates a feeling of belonging.

Keep your home organized

A home bar idea on a budget can be a great way to neatly store and organize all of your liquors, drink mixers, and bar accessories.

Leaves the kitchen for cooking

Setting up the kitchen counter as the drink mixing area can cause a real problem when you are trying to cook dinner or mix up appetizers for your friends and family.

People coming in to the kitchen to get a beer out of the fridge, glasses out of the cupboard, ice out of the freezer, and standing at the counter mixing drinks and chit chatting can add too much congestion in the kitchen area.

Creating a home bar gives your guests an area to congregate, while giving you the space you need.

Check out this guide to choose a home bar design on a budget. The objective of this article is to guide you through the process of choosing an inexpensive home bar that suits your budget and meets your unique entertainment needs.

Home Bar Furniture Tips On a Budget

Your inexpensive home bar furniture should be a fun, inviting space that your friends and family want to socialize in. The one element that can change the warm and positive feel? Low quality, outdated bar stools. You can instantly give your cheap home bar a facelift with the right bar stools, but where do you start?

If you have a design style in your home bar on a budget, you’ll most likely want to find bar stools that match it. Traditionally styled models might be constructed of antique-washed hardwood, while contemporary stools might have rounded aluminum legs and a microfiber seat. You can also choose your inexpensive stool based on its material. Leather barstools have a classy, rich look to them, while unfinished wooden barstools are suited for a cozy, cabin-inspired bar.

If you want to update your current design, cheap bar stool colours can make all the difference. You might want to keep the colours dark, just in case of a spill. However, leather is easily cleaned, so if you want a bright and bold look, coloured leather will get the message across. If you want a modern, try one a base that is made out of all chrome or aluminium. They will resist rusting and give a current look to your home bar on a budget.

You can choose from three different types ofbar stools on a budget– backless, backed, or backed with arms. It all depends on what kind of stool you prefer to sit on. Backless stools are popular in bars because people can sit on them at all angles and not have to worry about turning their chair around. However, if you like the back support, there are chairs available that are backed and swivel 360 degrees. Take comfort a step further with a backed, armed chair that you can kick back and relax in with a drink in your hand.

A few features you might want to look are:

• A foot bar around the base for your feet to rest on
• Gas lift height adjustment – perfect for when you have guests over since they’re all different heights
• Cushioned seats for the maximum in comfort
• A sturdy base – make sure no nails or screws are falling ou
• tAll you need to transform the feel of your home bar on a budget is a chic pair of bar stools!