Making Our Apartment Our Home: Coffee Bar & Dining Area

Even before we moved into our married apartment, we knew we'd want to have a coffee bar.  Coffee is really a pretty big part of our lives, and something we both enjoy.  Well, I'm pleased to say that we've finally got it done!  

Our coffee bar is complete with lots of storage, some open storage on the shelf, a mug rack and personalized original art.

I made the burlap coffee sign by gluing burlap to a canvas.  I used chalk to pre-mark my sign, then painted it with black paint.  Love how it turned out!

An oil pastel drawing I made to represent our wedding day.

This is an acrylic replication of a photo we took of our coffee cups while on our honeymoon.  It isn't completely done, but done enough to cover the ugly Ethernet outlet thing behind it.

See the ugly ethernet thing? (Who uses ethernet anymore anyway?)  Yep, the canvas hangs right on it - no nails or anything!

Here you get a better view of our full coffee bar wall, and the open storage on the top. 

The family portraits on the pallet board was a project I did for our wedding.  It sat in front of our wedding cake stand.  On the left begins with my grandparents when they were young, then my parent's wedding photo, leading to our photo in the middle.  On the right side is the same for Tyler's side of the family - his grandparents on the far right, then his parent's and then ours.  We wanted to keep it in our house after the wedding because we ended up really loving how this project turned out.

The white cups were four dessert cups that I brought back from China with me.  I just loved how tiny and cute they were, so in the luggage they went! 

Again, we have a wedding vase with flowers that I made, now serving its time as decorations at our apartment!  The canisters are a lovely gift from my in-laws, and are hand crafted with fossil handles on the lids.  And the toothpick holder was hand-crafted for us by Tyler's grandpa, and has a matching serving tray and bowls.  The coffee themed place mat was from my mom for Christmas!

When Tyler and I moved in together, we realized that we both had a lot of teas combined.  He had a bunch of free ones stuffed in a random sack, and I had a bunch of boxes half filled.  I decided to buy a jar to keep the individually wrapped packages in for easy access and so guests could look through the assorted flavors at our coffee bar.  I bought a clear jar and printed the "Self-Serve Tea" sign to put inside.

View of the coffee bar from our kitchen.

Eventually, I plan to fill the baskets on the left and make a chalkboard sign to hold our bags of coffee similar to how Starbucks does it.  (See fourth image down on the left).

The dresser itself is also a gift from our good friend Roger.  He was moving from Oklahoma to Oregon prior to our wedding, so as a gift he gave us some of his furniture - which we are so grateful for!  Since Tyler's parents gave us a complete bedroom dresser set, we thought this dresser worked perfect for a coffee bar in the dining room.  Thanks Roger!  We miss you!

Dining Table

This table and chairs has been what I've been using in college for the past three years!  My mom let me use her table (and as far as I know only wants it back whenever we're done using it), and the chairs are thrift finds.  We don't have four matching chairs as of now, but what we have works.  

(I say they work, Tyler says they are not comfortable).

Humble, it may be, but I really enjoy our table and chairs (especially the brown chairs on the left and right, since I redid them after buying.  They used to be ugly black torn up leather and scratched up silver backs).

I bought these place mats in China a few years ago.  I'm really enjoying getting to use them now and be reminded of my time there.

The chopstick holder was part of a set with the set with the place mats.  They originally came with black painted chopsticks (really bad quality) so I replaced them with better wooden ones.

We use the rough tiles as coasters, and the centerpiece is from the wedding (of course).  We love the salt and pepper mill!  (Thanks Jerry!)

Our dining area and coffee bar was really the most central place that we put together for the purpose of design and social entertaining.  Other parts of our apartment are the way they are because that's just how things fit, but here we have enjoyed spending our time on trying to make it look great!  The coffee bar is probably my favorite part of the house!

So let's do it...let's drink coffee, darling.  ;)

Don't forget to keep up with our apartment tour series here!