There are many ways you can make the most of the space in your garden, but garden room bars can offer the chance to be more than just sociable; they offer a myriad of options to take a trip down memory lane or create the kind of bar you always dreamed of visiting.

If this is what you plan to do, the first point is to consider your reasons for it. You don’t want this to be a place where you sit on your own like it is just a small shed; that is the purpose of a man cave for times of solitude, perhaps where you might be brewing your own beer or just chilling out.

All You Can Do In Your Own Bar

A bar, on the other hand, is designed to be a sociable space. You will want to impress your friends with the beer pumps, the array of drinks bottles and the layout, as well as enjoying your time there in ways you can’t do elsewhere.

You could have an all-night lock-in, for instance, and if you smoke (and the others don’t mind), you can wind the clock back to before 2007. Nobody can tell you it’s time to go home, because you’re already there.

It isn’t just about hedonism, though. Having your own bar provides an opportunity to put your own design stamp and personality on it. That means before you start, you should consider some of the ideas for designs and themes.

Great Ideas For Themes And Decor

For example, Mr Mancaving has come up with no fewer than 38 ideas for garden room bar themes.

Some of these involve giving the bar a rustic, wooden look, a kind of ye olde worlde feel that may contrast with the sleek, neon-lit modernity (though some would say that belongs in the 80s) that some would go for.

Other notable themes included having an all-black look from painted black wood to a sleek black marble bar surface. Space could be set aside for a pool or snooker table, or a dart board. Your theme could be that of a sports bar, an American diner, or cover it with musical memorabilia.

Particular attention might be drawn to the furnishing options, which included swivelling, upholstered bar chairs, stools made to look like giant branded beer bottle tops and a metal barrel with a glass top doubling as a table.

Perhaps the biggest win from a décor perspective was one design with cosy chairs and shelves with books. This may resemble the occasional Wetherspoons, but with the crucial difference that you don’t have to climb three sets of stairs to reach the toilets.

However, even this array of different possibilities doesn’t mark the limits of what you can do. Using some imagination, you could go further.

Insanely Unique Options

For example, you might be able to adopt some of the ideas in the most unusual bars in the world. A Buzzfeed article a few years ago listed the “21 insanely unique bars you need to drink at before you die”.

This included some you won’t be able to replicate, such as the Ice bar in Stockholm (like a giant igloo), or a Mexican bar in a real cave, not just a man cave. But there was a camping-themed bar in New York, a Harry Potter-themed venue in Toronto, a forest-themed bar in Barcelona and a pub full of taxidermy specimens in London.

Popular culture fans might want to copy themes such as that of a Doctor Who bar in Brooklyn, a Zombie-themed watering hole in Minneapolis and a Sci Fi bar in Las Vegas featuring everything from Star Wars to Superman.

Go Sporty

Other options could include decking your garden bar room out in the colours of your favourite football team, from the colours and livery through to shirts and pictures of players hanging on the wall. Naturally, this may not go down so well with guests who support rival clubs, but it is your bar, after all.

Alternatively, you could be a little less partisan and have a more general sports-themed bar, with lots of memorabilia and pictures, or indeed one sport in general. For example, a cricket fan might take inspiration from the Cricket Club Café in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

A garden bar may be a place to invite friends round to watch the match with a few drinks, to chill out after a hard day at work, enjoy a bit of cosy warmth without the excess noise, high prices or antisocial behaviour you might encounter in a pub in your town.

Whatever your purpose, with some creativity, you can create the bar you always dreamed of visiting in your own back garden.