ARE YOU LOOKING FOR WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR KITCHEN’S FUNCTIONALITY BUT STILL LOOKING FOR STYLE? WHY NOT SET UP A SMALL COFFEE STATION TO CLEAR UP SOME CLUTTER AND ADD SOME FUN!
How many of you have a Pinterest board dedicated to coffee? I feel like it can’t be just me! Along with all the dark-roasted goodness, I also have a fondness for coffee bars – the treats AND the furniture! But alas, our home is not large. In fact, I’d say it’s on the smaller side as far as houses go. So in my quest to incorporate all my favourite things into our home, I felt like I needed to create a dedicated coffee space. So let me show you how to set up a small coffee station that would look at home in any kitchen!
What You’ll Need – the Essentials
Contrary to popular belief and opinion, you don’t need a ton of real estate to set up the perfect coffee bar. In fact, you can get away with using a small corner or any of the dead space so often found in a kitchen.
When you’re getting ready to set up a small coffee station, consider how you drink coffee. It sounds a bit weird, I know, but trust me on this one. If you are a person who loves lattes and all things fancy, you’ll need a different setup than I do! My husband and I drink black coffee and LOTS of it!
This was my first step on my journey to my fun little coffee station. We don’t have a lot of bells, whistles or gadgets to support our coffee habit. This meant that I could choose a small, unused corner of my kitchen to set up a station.
We use a pretty simple work-horse of a coffee maker. It’s the Cuisinart Brew Central 10-Cup Thermal Coffee Maker. I love that it’s fully programmable, so we always have a fresh pot of coffee waiting for us in the morning! It doesn’t take up a ton of space, which I also really love!
Once you determine how much space your machine (or machines) will take up, you can choose the furniture.
Because the corner of our kitchen is just the end of the cupboards, I wanted something that would fit a fairly tight area. I dug around on Pinterest for some inspiration and then hit my favourite online shopping sites. While there were so many options, I needed to take our space into consideration.
In the end, I ordered this Storage Cabinet from Amazon. In fact, it’s marketed as a bathroom cabinet, but the smaller depth made it perfect for my kitchen! I chose to go with a white stand because it matches the kitchen cabinets and I can dress it up any way I like!
You can see how here I dressed up this simple cabinet into something fun that really coordinates with my overall decor theme – black and white!
Just the addition of the self-adhesive floral contact paper made such a difference on this simple cabinet!
All I did was get some Self-Adhesive Vinyl Contact Paper and cut a piece to fit the top of the cabinet! I love how it looks and clean-up is a breeze!
On the second shelf, I used two Woven Vinyl Placemats for under my mugs. Again, trim the placemats to cover as much or as little of the shelf as you like. I chose the vinyl placemats because they are easy to clean and they won’t fray when you trim them down.
A few more essentials for your small coffee station could include:
- Mugs – I like to display my favourite Starbucks Been There mugs on our coffee station
- Coffee Storage – I love cute farmhouse style canisters
- Bar Cloths for easy cleanup – using white cloths doesn’t seem to make sense with coffee stains, but you can easily bleach them!
- Small garbage or composting can for coffee grounds – we keep a container inside our coffee station so that we don’t have to cross the kitchen with a dripping coffee filter full of grounds.
You might find many more items that you consider essential, but this is really all we needed to start with!
What You’ll Want – the Extras
Once you have the essentials covered, the fun begins! Your list of wants, or extras, could be wide and varying! You may want some coffee-inspired artwork or signs, like these cute coffee-themed printables that I’ve created for you! You can get them from my Member Vault. I love having coffee-themed ANYTHING, but these little prints are so adorable!
You can download all of these images from my FREE Member Vault!
I designed these prints to look best at 5×5″, but if you have a frame that is slightly larger or smaller, go ahead and resize the design before you print it. The easiest way to resize is using your printer settings. I’ve included pdf and jpeg files for you to use!
Other accessories you might want to include:
- Sugar Bowl and Cream Server
- Stainless Steel Coffee Stir Sticks
- Spoon Rest or cups for clean and dirty spoons
You might even add in a Tiered Tray if you have enough space! All these items really round out the look of a coffee station, while still not taking up a ton of room!
If you are fortunate enough to have your coffee station against a wall, you can easily use hooks, baskets or shelving to display your favourite mugs, some cute artwork or any other piece of decor. My coffee station, as I said, is on the end of our kitchen counter, so I don’t have a solid backdrop. But we make the best of it! At least for now, but that’s a project for another day.
There are tons of great ideas for coffee stations all over Pinterest! I have a Pinterest board dedicated solely to coffee bars – you can click the link and follow me for more ideas!
So are you ready to set up your small coffee station? Remember – it doesn’t have to be big to be beautiful! And don’t forget to print out my FREE coffee-themed printables to dress up your coffee bar!
Want to remember this? Save “How to Set Up a Small Coffee Station: Easy DIY Home Decor” to your favourite Pinterest boards!
