Interior Design Essex: Creating a Luxury Home Bar

In this case study, we delve into creating a sophisticated home bar designed for clients who love entertaining. Based in Essex, this project showcases the interior design process, highlighting how challenges were overcome to create a dual-purpose reception room and home bar that blends seamlessly with adjacent spaces.

Interior Design Essex Home Bar: Client Brief

Our clients were passionate about entertaining and desired a space where friends could gather for drinks before moving on to the dining area. They envisioned a reception room that could transition into a bar later in the evening, offering a fun yet relaxing ambience.

Design Requirements

Function as both a reception room and a home bar.
Harmonise with the adjacent open-plan kitchen, entrance hall, and dining area.
Address the spatial challenges posed by large windows and a central wall partition.

Spatial Planning and Layout

The room’s layout made positioning the main bar and seating arrangements difficult. Extensive spatial planning using CAD allowed us to test various layouts, bar sizes, and seating concepts.

Final Layout

The optimal layout positioned the bar against the dividing wall with a seated bar in front. This setup maximised the available space. Given the limited width of the stud wall, we opted for circular bar stools to avoid bulkiness. We also sourced small sofas and coordinating chairs that could be rearranged for different entertainment scenarios.

Interior Design Essex Home Bar:Design Concepts

designed by okos koti

Interior Design Essex Home Bar: Products & Materials

We chose a mink colour palette with gold accents and wenge-coloured finishes to ensure the room complements the adjacent spaces. This choice provided a subtle yet luxurious feel, aligning with the client’s love for a bit of bling while maintaining a cohesive look throughout the home.

Textures and Patterns

We used different patterns and textures to add interest and depth. The walls were adorned with a gorgeous animal print wallpaper with a subtle shimmer, which we extended into the dining room. Roman blinds in a zebra pattern fabric blended into the backdrop, adding interest without overpowering the space.

Lighting and Ambiance

Gold and glass crystal wall lights and a gold chain light feature above the bar created a beautiful ambience. The gold finish on the bar stools and side tables added pizzazz, while the occasional chairs and mini sofas, with their gold panelling, contributed to a luxurious feel.

Interior Design Essex Home Bar: Products & Materials Style Board

designed by okos koti

Interior Design Essex Home Bar: Bar Design

Back Bar Design

The back bar was a focal point designed to offer a combination of open and hidden storage solutions. We incorporated:

Glass shelves in the middle with wooden shelves on either side, illuminated by LED light strips and downlights.
A beautiful gold panelling from Formica as the backdrop.
Construction using wenge wood and an off-white marble bar top with a stunning vein.

Seated Bar Design

The seated bar was constructed with the same wenge wood, featuring coordinating gold Formica and a marble top matching the back bar. This ensured consistency and visual harmony between the two bars.

designed by okos koti

Before: The room prior to the design transformation.

After: The room after the design transformation.

designed by okos koti

Interior Design Essex Home Bar: Client Feedback

The final design met all the client’s needs, creating a dual-purpose reception room and home bar that is both functional and visually appealing. The space now serves as a perfect venue for entertaining guests in style.

I have used Karen’s services on numerous rooms in 2 homes. I was so happy with what she did in my last home that I was in contact with her as soon as I moved to a new home so that she could work her magic again. It makes transforming a room so easy as I simply explain what look I am after and Karen designs a room, provides me with a full 3D visual and is happy to change anything that I am not happy with and draw it again until I am happy. I know what I want but I don’t know how to achieve it but with Karen’s help I get the perfect look without any hassle as Karen sources all the furniture and soft furnishings. Some people think Interior Designers impose their own look on their clients but with Karen, she works completely in tandem with the client’s requirements and gives you the look you want and not what she thinks you should have. I find it a very economical way of designing a room as it completely eradicates the cost of buying pieces of furniture you like but don’t give you the look you want when you get them home (which happened to me all the time when I tried to design a room myself). I couldn’t recommend Karen and her company highly enough.