I am SO EXCITED to take you through a room-by-room tour of our dream home–it’s been a top request for months now, and it is finally here!! Since we built this home to bring friends and family together, I wanted to kick-off the Home Tour with the space that tends to gather allllll the people–THE BAR!! Actually…two bars, to be exact!

We LOVE to entertain and have dinner (or breakfast or lunch) parties so this is an extension to our open-plan kitchen and it’s already a verrrry well-trafficked area. I also don’t hate the fact that I have an official place to store my wine now…and trust me when I say that I was READY to crack open a bottle or two once Boone was born and we were all moved in. This homebuild was a labor of looooove.

Let me start by saying I decked out our bar spaces with all-things Cafe Appliances. I love the look of all our bar appliances but I am OBSESSED with our nugget ice maker. I never knew that I cared about ice cubes until I got the GOOD ice…the Chick Fil-A kind that looks like little pebbles. An ice maker is something I’ve always wanted so this was a luxury item that we were so excited to include. One of the major reasons we went with Cafe Appliances was because you can literally personalize errrrrrthang (different hardware and color/material of the finishes) and I love being able to add custom touches. We also got their dual-drawer mini refrigerator in stainless steel (but it also comes in WHITE, which I LOVE), and I literally can’t say enough how much I love having this small-but-mighty fridge in our bar area that fits alllllll the drinks.

The bar backsplash is from Triangle Tile and Stone, and I wanted it to look like white-washed brick and they killed it! They’re based in Raleigh and have all of our tile choices on file, so give them a call (and ask for Ashton–she’s awesome!) if you want all the details!  If you watched our new TV show, “My Outdoor Family“, you would’ve seen the behind-the-scenes disagreement between Tim and I over the countertop in our bar… he wanted dark and I wanted light. Eventually I caved and we picked out a granite called “Black Pearl” with a “leathered” finish and surprise, surprise, Tim was right (eye roll) and now I LOVE IT! I thought the dark top would draw too much attention to the bar, since it’s right next to my light-colored kitchen, but it compliments it so well and feels a bit more masculine, which Tim loves so he can hang out at the bar with the guys, while I visit with the girls around my massive kitchen island. It’s a win-win!

I’m also fairly sure you can’t have a farmhouse situation without shiplap, right?! All of the shiplap throughout our home is from Metrie, and their website has a TON of #shiplapinspo to pull ideas from! We painted the shiplap “Agreeable Gray” from Sherwin Williams to match our cabinetry in the bar and I love how it turned out to be it’s own little space, while still pulling similar design elements from the rest of the house so it all flows. We also have a pass-through window so we can open it wide and pass drinks out to people on the patio… Helllllooo summer pool parties!

Our barstools are from Simply Amish, (as is nearly all of our furniture) and they’re gorgeous, a bit masculine (for Tim and all his boys -ha!) and seriously comfortable; it also doesn’t hurt that my insanely talented aunt (shout-out to Cindy Shockey) designs most of the furniture for Simply Amish and helped me customize all the pieces. There are zillions of options to choose from, that are all amazing, and the Simply Amish team helped me talk through my vision for this space and we came up with the coolest furniture. If you want the exact specs, these stools are the “B&O Trestle Bridge Backless Barstool” in Soft Maple with a Cloudy Bay Stain 20 Sheen… that’s a mouthful.

Among other things, all of the faucets in our house came from Rick Jacobs at R. Jacobs Fine Plumbing in Raleigh, NC. We used the brand “Dornbracht” for all of our plumbing fixtures throughout the house and every piece is SO beautiful… I never really paid attention to faucets before we built our home, but once I started my deep-dive into the various products and brands, these stood out from the rest. And Rick Jacobs is one of the sweetest men and such a joy to work with – if you’re in the Raleigh area, make sure you give him a shout!

All the hardware in the bar are Top Knobs flat sided pulls from the “Aspen” line, in the color “silicon bronze light“. I wanted the hardware throughout the house to feel heavy and “chunky” so they range from 6-inch to 18-inch pulls depending on the cabinet and we have the same style and color of hardware throughout our entire kitchen and upstairs Wet Bar….

Speaking of Wet Bar…upstairs we have a guest area and we decided to add in a smaller bar (aka our Wet Bar) with a coffee maker, another Cafe Appliance fridge, a sink and space for alllll the snacks. If you stay at our house, you will never go hungry!

For all of our kitchen and bar space-planning and cabinetry, we used David Glover from Design Gaps in Charlotte, NC.  He was a DREAM to work with and put up with my VERY specific ideas of how I wanted this space to turn out and in real life, it is better than I ever pictured in my head. Downstairs I did all light cabinets – our kitchen is all “Alabaster” and our bar cabinets are “Agreeable Gray” – but I wanted upstairs to look a little bit more “country and rustic” so I chose these wood-toned cabinets from Downsview Kitchens mixed with shiplap on the accent wall. Also, for those wondering, the countertop on the Wet Bar is quartz in “Carrara Veil” and it looks so good with the wood color. This particular quartz is much more warm (think: yellow tones) than I had anticipated but next to the wood-colored cabinets, it works!

The flooring throughout our entire home is from Hallmark Floors, in the color “Malibu” from the Alta Vista Collection and it’s the perfect combination of warm, yet light-colored and it hides dirt SO SO SO well. It’s light enough not to show dust, but dark enough that if there’s anything on the floor, it doesn’t stand out. And finally, if you love sliding barn doors as much as me, our double-doors leading into our guest area are from Rustica Hardware and I am in love, love, LOVE with them! You can customize your barn doors on their website to the exact specs (size, material, finish, hardware etc) that you need and they ship them to you! These doors are one of my favorite features in our entire home – highly recommend them if you’re in the market for a “statement” piece like this!

I think I covered most of it… if you have more questions about this space, drop them in the comments below! It’s crazy how many moving parts are involved in building a custom home, much less our FOREVER farmhouse and I am just over-the-moon happy with how it all came together (huge shoutout to our builder extraordinaire, Clifton Hicks)! The bar areas are small, simple, and beautiful: and now we’re ready for ALL THE GUESTS!!!!

What did you think of the bars?! What room do you want me to post next? Make sure you’ve visited my previous home build blogs and subscribe so you don’t miss any of the good stuff coming your way!!

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VENDOR RECAP

Contractor/Builder – Clifton Hicks

Ice maker/Mini-Fridge – Cafe Appliances

Backsplashes – Triangle Tile and Stone

Barstools – Simply Amish

Paint – Sherwin Williams

Cabinet Hardware – TopKnobs

Plumbing Fixtures – Rick Jacobs

Cabinetry and Space Planning – David Glover

Shiplap – Metrie

Barndoors – Rustica Hardware

Wood Floors – Hallmark Floors

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