When thinking about setting up a bar in your garden room, there can sometimes almost be too much freedom in terms of style, furniture, functionality and features that you can fit into a beautiful building in your garden.
Part of this is choice paralysis, as there are almost limitless options for tweaking a bar to be the kind of pub, cocktail bar, speakeasy or arcade bar you want, but the best place to start is to think of your local or your favourite bar and take inspiration from what you like about it.
For many people, that can be anything from a traditional country pub all the way to the unapologetic authenticity of a dive bar, and because the latter is having its moment in the sun, here are some ways to capture that all-too-familiar ambience.
What Is A Dive Bar And Why Do People Like Them?
A dive bar, originally used as one of many terms for an illicit drinking den, is an unglamorous, kind of shabby, dimly lit bar known for its cheap drinks, local culture and inability or unwillingness to change and adapt with the times.
Exactly defining a dive bar can be difficult because they vary not only from country to country but also from region to region. A dive bar in Middle America will feel quite different from a flat-roofed pub in a UK suburb or an izakaya in a Japanese city.
The term was meant to be an insult, with the idea that anyone who drinks there has to lower their standards, deal with room-temperature drinks, dim lighting and an aesthetic that is a mix of vintage signs, neon lights and graffiti.
At the same time, however, a lot of people like dive bars, and the number of people who actively seek them out has grown exponentially in the 2020s as the forced closure of hospitality allowed many pubs and clubs to refurbish.
They are unpretentious, non-judgemental, long-lasting pubs which become a centre of a community or a subculture. They are also a vital part of the live music ecosystem, working as small music venues that allow bands to get their start playing to people.
How Do You Capture The Dive Bar Look?
As mentioned before, the key to dive bars is community identity, individuality and a design aesthetic that is built up over time rather than necessarily devised from the start.
A great dive bar should feel like it has existed forever and remained both largely the same but adapted just enough for everyone around that.
Replicating this intentionally can be difficult, but here are four major ways to capture a dive bar’s ambience at home.
What Should The Lighting Be Like?
Dive bars are almost infamous for their low lights, which, whilst initially used for practical purposes to hide the true state of the furniture and cut costs, have become a major tool for establishing that intimate and ironically welcoming look.
What helps with this is that a dive bar typically has a range of incidental lighting elements that stand out against the relatively low light, including neon light sights, spotlights on the back of the bar and string lights using relatively small bulbs.
The best way to perfect this is to use a dimmer switch for the house lights to choose the aesthetic that suits your garden room bar the best.
How Do You Add History To Your Garden Room?
The trait that every dive bar has in common is that the walls are splattered with a personal and local history that defines the community it serves.
Alongside vintage spirit and beer advert posters and collections of classic coasters, sporting paraphernalia, local maps and artefacts, band stickers and all sorts of locally or personally meaningful trinkets, buy an instant camera and take pictures of yourself and the people who spend the most time in the bar.
What Type Of Bar Works Best For A Dive Bar?
Ultimately, dive bars are built on functionality, so your bar should be one that looks like it is designed around convenience and ease of maintenance.
Usually this means a polished, lacquered wooden bar top, but brass or copper are also popular choices.
Add a footrail to the bottom, and arrange your bottles and cans at the back of the bar for easy access to make a fitting display.
What Furniture Is Best For A Dive Bar?
Stick with familiar, well-worn favourites for bar furniture. Have tall stools at the bar itself, sturdy, well-worn wooden tables, and a booth if you have space.
For the best results, artificially age the wood and add some graffiti art and stickers to provide extra character.