Garden Room Bar: How to Design One That Gets Used

A garden room bar is a garden room fitted out as a bar and a place to entertain, with a counter, cold storage, somewhere to sit and glazing that opens onto the garden so the party can spill outside. The ones that get used every week share three things: a layout planned around how people actually stand and sit, services that were put in before the floor went down, and a room warm enough to use in November. The ones that become a shed with a fridge in it usually skipped one of those.

What makes a good garden room bar?

Start with the counter. A bar counter is the one fixed piece of furniture the room is built around, and it decides where everything else goes. Put it against one of the solid walls so the back bar, the shelving and the fridge sit behind it out of sight from the garden, and leave the glazed faces of the room for seating and the view.

Counter height matters more than people expect. A standard bar counter is around 1,050 to 1,100 millimetres high, with a lower working surface behind it at kitchen height. Stools at the counter need about 600 millimetres each along its length, so a counter for four people is 2.4 metres long before you add the working end.

Then the seating. A bar with nowhere to sit apart from stools is a place people stand in for an hour and leave. A sofa or a pair of armchairs in the glazed part of the room, looking at the garden, turns it into a room you stay in.

Layouts for a garden room bar

The three layouts that work depend on the size of the room. As a guide, a counter for four with seating behind it needs about 12 square metres, and a bar with a lounge area alongside is usually 18 to 25 square metres.

In a small room, under about 12 square metres, the bar runs along the back wall and the seating is at the counter. The glazed face opens fully so the terrace outside becomes the seating area in summer.

In a medium room, the counter sits at right angles to the back wall as a peninsula, so the person behind it faces the room rather than the wall. Seating goes in the glazed half of the room. This is the layout that feels most like a real bar.

In a larger room, the bar occupies one end and the other end takes a table or a lounge arrangement. A garden room this size is usually doing two jobs, and our garden room ideas post covers how to pair a bar with a cinema, a games area or a dining space.

The style follows from the house and how you entertain. A pub-style bar suits dark timber, a brass foot rail and a back bar of shelving; a cocktail lounge suits a stone counter, low armchairs and soft lighting; a sports bar is built around the screen and the sightlines to it.

Services: power, water and drainage

Get this right first, because you cannot change it afterwards without lifting the floor.

Power needs its own circuits. A fridge, ice machine, lighting, sound system and heater all draw power, and a bar fridge runs continuously, so run an armoured supply in a trench from the house consumer unit to a small consumer unit in the room.

Water is optional but changes the room: a sink behind the bar means glasses are washed there. It needs a cold feed and a drain with a fall back to the house drainage, or a pumped waste. Lay the pipes in the same trench as the power, and add a data cable if there will be a screen or streamed music.

Glazing and opening up to the garden

A bar is at its best when it opens. Bifolding doors across the glazed face fold the whole wall away, so the counter serves the terrace and the room at once. Sliding doors keep more of the view when closed and are quicker to open on a cool evening when you only want a gap.

The glazing spec should be the same as the house: double glazed as a minimum, with a low-emissivity coating to hold the heat in winter and solar control glass on any face that takes afternoon sun. A bar that overheats in July gets used as little as one that freezes in January.

Our hardwood garden rooms are part glazed and part solid, which suits a bar exactly: the solid walls take the counter, the storage and the services, and the glazed walls take the people.

Heating, ventilation and lighting

Underfloor heating under a stone or tiled floor is the quietest and takes no wall space; a slim panel radiator on a solid wall suits a smaller room. Insulate the floor, walls and roof properly.

A bar has more people in it than an office, so opening rooflights or a vented lantern should let warm air out of the top while the doors bring cool air in.

For the mood, use downlights over the counter, pendants over the seating and LED strip in the back bar, all on dimmers, and light the path from the house.

Planning permission and building regulations

A garden room bar is an outbuilding and normally falls under permitted development in England, within the height, position and coverage limits for outbuildings; within 2 metres of a boundary it can be no more than 2.5 metres high. Building regulations can apply depending on size, and the electrics must be certified. Our guide to garden room planning permission sets out the detail.

A bar does not need a licence at home. Serving drinks to friends and family is not a licensable activity; selling them is.

Garden room bar questions, answered

How do you keep a garden bar warm in winter?

Insulate the floor, walls and roof, specify low-emissivity double glazing, and fit underfloor heating or a panel radiator. A properly insulated hardwood room holds its heat on a small input.

How big should a garden room bar be?

About 12 square metres for a counter for four with seating behind it, and 18 to 25 square metres for a bar with a lounge area alongside.

Talk to our design team

A garden room bar is one of the uses that most rewards a room designed for it rather than adapted afterwards, because the counter, the services and the glazing all have to agree. If you are planning one, we are happy to talk it through before the first line is drawn.