Creating a Handmade Bar in the Kitchen

Staying in is the new going out!

Serve beer and cocktails like you’re on holiday in the comfort of your own home.

The popular trend nowadays is staying at home and entertaining family and friends. What better place to do this than gathering everyone in your kitchen with the ultimate handmade home bar at your fingertips.

Here at Nicholas Bridger we design, manufacture and install truly bespoke kitchens that are built with pride, solid wood and meet our client’s individual circumstances and requirements. The end result of your kitchen is working with a company that you can trust to exceed your expectations. We love designing and completing unique features to the home, and we are very excited to announce our first home bar!

Below is the first look of that impressive bar in the Grade II listed property in Bishop’s Stortford featuring our Classic Shaker style.

Colours

We hand paint the furniture in the colour of your choice, and are painted on site once the units have been built. It is a beautiful brush-on finish that follows the wood grain perfectly while protecting the wood beneath it. We use quality paints from respectable paint companies such as Farrow & Ball, Little Greene, Dulux, Crown, Sandersons and Paint & Paper Library.

The bar itself has been hand painted in Farrow & Ball ‘Dove Tale’. Dove Tale from Farrow & Ball is a warm grey with lilac undertones and a darker version of Elephant’s Breath and is perfect for those who are hoping for a warm grey finish. The grey hues within this colour create a soft and inviting feel to the hub of the home.

The island in our Bishop’s Stortford project that sits adjacent to the bar was hand painted in a deep aubergine colour known as ‘Brinjal’ from Farrow & Ball. It is sophisticated in colour being perfect to create a feature in the kitchen area. This area has also been used to house the Sub-Zero Wine Cooler and a bespoke handmade engraved serving tray. Perfect additions to the bar!

Worktops

At Nicholas Bridger, we supply the finest Quartz worktops on the market, and you have a choice of manufacturer to use. Quartz stone is non-porous, scratch & stain resistant and extremely hardwearing making them easy to maintain.

Granite worktops are naturally different and are a traditional luxury style of worktop, with the material being carved from the rock faces of quarrys around the world.

Solid Wooden worktops are popular with clients looking for the ‘all-wood’ kitchen. They are attractive to look at and are very functional. Wood has a soft, textured and warm feel to it and helps create a family friendly environment.

The choice is yours… Our client in Bishop’s Stortford opted for the Bianca Eclipsia Quartzite for their worktops and flowed this on to the bar area too. It is an off-white to white-grey quartzite with small and big grey veins varying in both pattern and shade of colour, it is absolutely beautiful, and complements the historic features in this home.

Storage

At Nicholas Bridger, storage is always an important discussion and design feature within every one of our bespoke handmade kitchens. Our team will design storage solutions to suit your requirements, whether it is drawers, doors, high mounted long-term storage, corner cupboards or something else.

The delightful bar we created in our Bishop’s Stortford project offers many storage solutions. They include; solid front curved corner cabinets on the bottom, two drawers, and two frontal kitchen cabinets, all with a soft close. Above this, two glass curved cabinets sit either side with open-shelving set in the middle in front of an antique glass splashback, offering the ideal storage solution for glasses.

Detailed features

Kitchen handles as individual as you are…handles never completely go out of fashion. By combining different handle styles and materials can give you a beautiful and individual look to your dream kitchen.

Our client chose Armac Martin ‘Merrick’ handles and knobs throughout their kitchen. The ‘Merrick’ collection is machined from solid-brass and is traditional in appearance with a reeded design, perfect to fit in with the period features of this home. Armac Martin is a British brand of kitchen handles and knobs and manufactured in Birmingham since 1929. They are also known to feature in some of the world’s finest kitchens.

Cornices, Pelmets & Plinths give your bespoke handmade kitchen a finishing touch. They are designed to tie the whole of the kitchen together, giving the impression of a long continuous piece of furniture rather than individual cabinets.

The cornices, pelmets & plinths on the bar are curved to suit the characteristics of this Grade II listed property and the shape of this beautiful feature. The cornices are in a traditional style, with the plinths being an inset design.

A closer up view of the Sub-Zero Wine Cooler below that features a dual zone allowing you to keep both White and Red wines at their optimal temperatures. To the right of this is a pull out full height drawer that takes care of storing mixers ready to serve drinks on the solid oak engraved serving tray. To the left is that perfect seating area again!

Let us leave you with an outstanding picture of the main kitchen where the handmade bar is situated on the left. As you can see this is a huge space with lots of potential to make a great entertaining space for our client’s family and friends. A kitchen island takes centre stage providing an idyllic seating area with the most loveliest soft velvet bar stools. Our client and their family and friends can chat over the delicious gin & tonic made from the drinks bar and tuck into some creamy brie.

Here at Nicholas Bridger we pride ourselves in giving our client’s the best service possible as well as creating their dream luxury kitchen with the ideal kitchen design. Are you thinking of adding an upcoming trend to your modern kitchen? Contact us today to find out more on handmade home bars – we look forward to hearing from you.