The 50 Best Home Bar Ideas and Designs to Shake Things Up

At stunning Blackberry Farm, with Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains as a dreamy backdrop, Mary Celeste Beall showcases her refined, low-key, and luxurious entertaining style. Here, a simple bar table dressed up with a La DoubleJ tablecloth overlooks a pasture. A spray of wildflowers gathered from the fields adds height to the vignette.

This “vision in terra-cotta and blue”—aptly dubbed by its creator, kitchen designer Jim Dove—pays tribute to New York’s beloved Monkey Bar, which closed in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tropical de Gournay wallpaper climbing with dapper monkeys delivers a glamorous yet playful pièce de résistance. Silk taffeta drapery, fabricated by The Shade Store, in a poppy orange shade envelops the 2022 Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach room in pure elegance and softens a striking (and glowing) quartz bar.

Treasured glassware, both heirloom and collected from around the world, commands a bar crafted of Eramosa vein-cut marble for a glamorous glowing effect in a sizzling Mexico City condo. Bronze hardware, Funart

In this outside-meets-inside pavilion space at the 2024 Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Palm Beach, an elegant games table and plenty of extra seating draws the party poolside. An inviting bar filling the side wall makes lingering longer a breeze.

Dry vodka martinis are served from a 1940s garden table on the front porch of designer Jan Showers’s Colonial-style home. Showers greets guests with bubbly, “of course,” or a mocktail, too. “Always make sure people are offered refreshment when they first arrive, especially if they’ve been traveling,” she says. “That’s the first lesson I learned from my mother, a consummate hostess.”

Now this is a proper watering hole that is sure to be a top destination for entertaining! Because this area connects with the family room in the 2023 Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Dallas, designer Jason Jones made sure the spaces felt cohesive. “It’s such a fantastic space to entertain in,” Jones says. “Even from inside the bar you can see what’s going on, and if you lived here, it would be a pretty incredible place to host from because you can see the party flowing and the fire going in the family room.”

In the 2023 Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Dallas, a 10-foot built-in velvet banquette is an inviting perch for afternoon tea and evening cocktails alike. More for receiving drinks than preparing them, this former hallway space got a complete makeover from Richmond-based designer Sara Hillery who infused it with a bright green Stroheim velvet and Fabricut tassel trim, playful artwork framed by Fleur Home, and a stunning oyster shell-inspired light fixture provided by James Showroom.

This Martha’s Vineyard screened-in porch makes entertaining a breeze. A long table with bench seating beckons a crowd for meals. A bar cart stocked with cocktail ingredients invites guests to linger longer to soak in the ocean view beyond.

In her former New York loft kitchen, designer Katie Leede’s goal was ultimate functionality. Depending on the event, the island can be used for dining at night, working during the day, or setting up as a bar for entertaining on weekends.