After the festivities of winter, where a garden room is often an essential place to bring family and friends together, many people will turn their attention not only to a new year but also to a new project.

For some, it will mean setting up a brand new extension space in their garden, whilst for others, the focus will be on turning a convenient space into an unforgettable feature of your house.

A garden room bar is the perfect example, and many people start to make enquiries in the new year.

What often happens over the Christmas period is that people will visit friends and family with a home bar, are enamoured with how it looks and how comfortable and convenient it is to have a third place away from home, and look to install one in the new year.

It can sometimes be hard to choose what type of bar you want to install at home, so with that in mind, here are five favourites and how you can easily capture the style, atmosphere and feel within the comfort of your own home.

Country Pub

A traditional country pub is a British institution, and almost everyone has their own favourite local that acts as a home away from home.

What is so amazing about making a pub at home is that there are very few ways to get it wrong. 

Whether you add a touch of your own personal style to it or stick to the classic woodgrain, blackboard, and roaring (ideally electric) fireplace, a pub in your own garden is a perfect conversation starter.

Top Tips For The Best Country Pub

  • Add a touch of home.
  • Familiarity is personality.
  • Choose wooden furniture.
  • Consider richly coloured furnishings such as red, burgundy and green.
  • Add chalkboards and tailor drinks for guests.

Wine Bar

On the other hand, for a touch of quiet, secluded sophistication, a wine bar is an ideal alternative to the homely social scene of a local pub or the livelier atmosphere associated with a nightclub.

What makes a wine bar special, aside from the beautiful array of bottles on display and a setting that inspires intellectual conversation, is that there is such a wide scale of ways to make your wine bar special.

Some have far closer ties to the wine cellars and cantinas that inspired them, whilst others are far closer to a mix between a coffeehouse and a cocktail bar.

There is so much scope to experiment, as long as you make sure the bar is there when you lean against it.

Top Tips To Make The Best Garden Room Wine Bar

  • Make seats from wooden barrels.
  • Make your wine rack a centrepiece.
  • Enliven the mood with candles and warm lighting.
  • Use wood and dark stone as your base materials.
  • Use interesting glasses storage as a key feature.

Rock Club

As much an attitude as it is a type of bar, rock clubs are all about energy, about authenticity and about an adoration of underground music that speaks to generations of people.

The rock aesthetic is, more than perhaps any other type of bar, all about authenticity and a genuine love of music, which often takes precedence over symmetry, style and sophistication.

Some of the most beloved music venues have exposed metal trusses, hazard tape, black walls and sticker walls to commemorate bands that pass through them, so celebrate what makes your garden room and your music style unique.

Top Tips For Making An Authentic-Feeling Rock Club

  • Dark walls and muted lighting.
  • Add meaningful memorabilia.
  • Create a sticker/poster wall.
  • Focus on your speaker system.
  • Add a stage for live music.

Cocktail Bar

Cocktail bars take that sophisticated style of a wine bar and go further, embracing the spectacle that is mixology and drinksmaking, before extending that theme across the rest of the bar.

Mirrors, glass, colourful lighting and lashings of neon all help to create a retro-futurist look that is often at the centre of a cocktail bar.

Top Tips For Building A Sophisticated Cocktail Bar

  • Set up a space for mixing cocktails.
  • Have a set of cocktail glasses.
  • Use glass and colourful lights to create a sophisticated modern image.
  • Presentation is key.
  • Have the base spirits you need.

Speakeasy

Everybody who is anybody will want to step through the door of your garden speakeasy, the prohibition-era secret home of good times, sweet cocktails and amazing jazz music.

With the speakeasy rising in popularity, the key is to embrace much of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne style that makes that Gatsby-esque era so special.

Top Tips For Creating A Stylish Vintage Speakeasy

  • Art Deco goes hand in hand with speakeasies.
  • Add Tufted leather furniture for a touch of luxury.
  • Use marble, brass and brushed metal.
  • Use vintage-style lights with warm lighting.
  • Make it look hidden and secretive.