With my girlfriends birthday coming up i decided to fulfil one of her requests and build her a mini-bar. After a bit of searching for inspiration I came up with a rough design and went from there. In general this is a fairly simple project, relatively cheap and produces a really stylish bar that is intended to be wall mounted and emptied as you please!! A note of caution: i used 9mm ply and had major problems, as the brand new sheet of it that i bought was slightly warped, despite many attempts to correct this, it is still slightly noticeable in the final product and made construction much slower and more difficult.

Materials: 8'*2' 9mm sheet material, 600mm piano hinge, magnetic catch, wood glue, screws, paint

Tools: Sash clamps (ideal but not needed), drill, screwdrivers, sander

Go to: https://www.instructables.com/id/Table-top-Mini-ba... to see my table top version

Step 1: Planning

For the bar my design spec was that: It should hold at least 4 bottles, plus mixers and barware; it should be wall mounted; it should have space for drinks preparation. This could easily be made bigger or smaller and suitable adjustments made.

To fulfil this i grabbed some cardboard (in this case a ski boot box seemed to be about the right size) and filled with what I had sitting about. From this I made adjustments to the size for ease of manufacture and made up a cutting list.

The bar was to be: 607mm wide (the width of a half sheet of ply), 170mm deep, and have an internal height of 380mm. Having worked out that I would support my door without a chain ect. I then added 150mm of height so that when open, the door would support itself.

Next these measurements were converted into a cutting list and i went to buy wood. I used 9mm ply but i would recommend using MDF instead as being more homogenous it is easier to work with, and when painted will give as good or better finish.

Step 2: Construction

To build up the box I used a series of butt joints (for ease) and used glue and screws to fix. The slight complication i had due to the bent ply meant more time was needed to try to straighten out pieces and fix them. As a concession to this i also added a spruce strip around the inside for something extra to help fix the ply square.

Step 3: Fitting the Door

Fitting the door is more or less the last stage but is crucial to give the clean aesthetic i was hoping for. To get this as close as possible I first painted the main box so that i didnt have to allow extra room for the paint. I found that this stage was best done by cutting a piece as close as possible with a band saw then sanding in small increments to fit. NB. this would have been much easier had my sheet been flat so make sure you buy decent wood, i ended up using some MDF for the door as the ply wouldnt fit well.

Step 4: Finishing

To finish off my bar (or my girlfriend's bar as it was to become), I attached the door using a piano hinge and painted with blackboard paint, i also added a magnetic catch although many variations could be used here. Then the best bit... stocking it!!

For this I bought what i deemed to be mini-bar essentials:

Gin, Vodka, Rum, some mixers, a cocktail set, cocktail book and a chopping board (which i made by shaping a nice piece of oak then waxing with a food-safe wax).

With this basic set of ingredients and kit a lot can be made and with a few simple additions you can make most of the 200 cocktails in the book i bought.

After finishing I also decided that I needed one myself and made a table-top variation, instructable to come...