6 Ideas for a Convenient Drinks Station
A current trend in kitchen design is designating work stations, especially when you have a larger area to work with. Instead of just having food preparation areas with no specific purpose, you can tailor the design to a certain task. One such task is drink preparation.
Preparing a drink, be it a smoothie or margarita, can require almost as much effort as a food dish. What’s more, drink preparation requires special equipment and serving ware. Therefore, it makes sense to designate a corner of the kitchen — or main gathering space — as a drinks station.
Coffee Station
If you love your coffee, then you’ll want to set up a barista-style drinks station. For this design, you don’t necessarily need any large appliances. However, you want to ensure you have room and electrical access for your coffee maker, though it’s even possible to have a built-in espresso maker installed.
Concerning storage, your coffee station should include shelving or cabinetry for all your cups, mugs and saucers. You may want space for flavoring syrups as well. Likewise, ensure your countertop is large enough to accommodate actual drink preparation as well as canisters for coffee and sugar. The surface should be heat-resistant — any natural stone such as granite will work.
Tea Station
Perhaps you’re more of a tea person. A tea station is very similar to a coffee station. Of course, you’ll replace the coffee maker with a tea maker or electric tea kettle. If you’re a purist, you may even want a single burner installed for heating the water.
With a tea station, you definitely want both external and internal storage. For external storage, plan shelving to display your pretty tea cups. For internal storage, you’ll need enough cabinet space for all your teas, sweeteners and additional tea cups. As with the coffee station, choose a heat-resistant countertop.
Smoothie Station
Are you something of a health nut? If so, a smoothie station is ideal. For this installation, you’ll want a mini refrigerator for ingredients such as produce and yogurt. A small sink works well in this design, too.
Since smoothie makers aren’t as decorative as coffee makers, you may prefer to have them stored in specialized cubbies built into your station. You probably also won’t need as much display storage, but plan plenty of cabinet space for glasses and smoothie additives like protein powder or peanut butter. For the surface, consider one that you can chop directly on, such as granite or butcher block.
Traditional Wet Bar
A traditional wet bar comprises three important elements — storage, work area and clean up. In fact, the storage is the most important area because you’ll need to stash your liquor. Choose internal storage because a cool, dark area will keep liquor longer. You also need cabinet space for your utensils and some of your stemware.
A lot of your stemware can be stored on open shelves and on wine glass racks to make an attractive display. To facilitate clean up, including a small sink is ideal. Likewise, consider having a trash can built into one of the cabinets.
Cocktail Bar
If you do a lot of entertaining, you may need a larger bar. You may still tuck it into a corner of the kitchen, but you should also consider a standalone bar near your main entertainment area. The work space could also be the serving counter as in a traditional bar.
For a cocktail bar, you’ll still need liquor, utensil and drinkware storage, which requires more space. In addition to a small sink, you may also consider adding a mini refrigerator for storing ingredients.
Wine Bar
Are you a wine connoisseur? If so, you may prefer to tailor your wet bar to wine specifically. With a wine bar, you may decide against a sink. You probably also don’t need a traditional refrigerator. However, consider investing in a wine refrigerator.
For this design, you need less preparation area and a lot more specialized storage. You’ll want to stock your shelves with stemware for the different wines you’ll serve as well as special equipment such as decanters and corkscrews. Naturally, you’ll want wine racks built into the space.
Design a drinks station that makes sense for your home routine. Get in touch with our designers at Callier Thompson Kitchen & Bath to talk about the design that will work best with your remodel.