Who doesn’t want a pub at the bottom of their garden? Forget queuing at the bar and arranging a taxi home - a garden bar gives nipping to the local a whole new meaning. You can choose your own theme, own décor and best of all it’s always open! But how do you make your dreams a reality, I mean where do you even start?
Well how about with the bar itself. Often these are the focal points of any garden pub so you want to make sure it fits in perfectly with your aesthetic. The best way to do this is make it yourself! We know this may seem daunting but why not rise to the challenge, that way when friends visit your pub you can show off by telling them you made the bar yourself - what better reason than that?
There are many different ways to make your own garden bar but this article will be focusing on upcycling wooden pallets. Here at Waltons we strive to be as environmentally friendly as possible, using sustainably sourced timber and building all of our products right here in the UK to keep delivery emissions as low as possible. So why not take a leaf out of our book and use recycled materials to create your dream bar. You can find wooden pallets almost everywhere but the best place to look are online marketplaces where you can often find them for free. The size of your bar will impact how many pallets you need. We used three to create ours, one for the front, one to make the sides and one to make the counter itself.
Begin by standing up one of your pallets, this will make the front of your bar. Next, you need to half your second pallet to make the sides of the bar. We didn’t cut directly down the middle due to the support blocks so our sides aren’t even but that works nicely for our bar and where we placed it. It's completely up to you however you decide to cut it. We used a power tool but an ordinary hand saw will work just as well - it just might take slightly longer.
Once you are happy with the sides you just need to put it all together. We wanted ours to slot into place so we had to saw off a bit more from the bottom plank to make it fit. Then you just drill it into place. It doesn’t matter if the ends aren’t quite even as this can be fixed later either by using a saw or sanding it down.
Now, you want to take the pallet you haven't used yet and remove the planks of wood. These will become the counter, shelf and trimmings of our bar. The best way to do this would be to use a crowbar or a hammer to knock it out of place. Then remove any nails so you don’t accidentally hurt yourself.
The counter is where the main action will be taking place, where drinks will be served and memories will be made so it's important to get it right. We wanted the counter to wrap around the sides of the bar and have a slight overhang for more counter space. Think about what you want to put on the bar and work out the size from there. Rather than drill the planks directly into the structure we cut some small supports which would keep the counter stable and together so it can then be attached to the bar. To hide this we added a trim to the side to make the counter look a bit cleaner. You could also add shelves for extra storage (or to hide the best booze) on the support beams inside the pallet. Then just sand the bar down and the hard part of the build is all done!
Onto the fun part - decorating! This is your bar going in your garden pub so you can decorate it however you want, be creative! Maybe you want to paint it in your favourite colours, maybe your football team’s kit or simply varnish the wood and leave it natural. However you decide to decorate it, make sure to add in some personality - this is your own personal bar after all.
And there you have it! You have successfully made a bar out of wooden pallets - congratulations! The centrepiece of your garden pub is now completely ready for friends and family to marvel at. We hope this guide has inspired you to build your own garden bar. If you decide to give this DIY project a go we’d love to see your garden bar in action. Send us photos of your garden pub for a chance for it to be featured on our social media!
