Ashwood Manor: Coffee Corner: Awkward Space Solution

My living room is an awkward space. It's rather roomy, so the problem is not how to fit all my furniture comfortably in it. Instead, it's just shaped in an awkward way, which makes it difficult to create useful space--and I ultimately want all the space in my house to be useful and easy to clean.

The living room is part of an addition on the house that was created long enough ago to have settled and finished settling, but is definitely not original to the house. It would just be a square popped onto the rear of the house, except that they added a bathroom to the space as well by cutting out a corner of the room. I'm not upset at that; without it there's no bathroom downstairs, so it's definitely needed and appreciated. But it ends up shaping the room in such a way that there are two pockets of space that basically are unused once I set up the TV area. Some of that we've solved by using a sofa table and desk against the couch, but there was a space in particular that really was just empty and barren, tucked away behind the bathroom.

I wasn't sure what to do with it. However, I had been inspired by several posts on coffee bars. I pinned images like this one:

And this one:

A quick overview of making the bar here.

And generally had dreamed of a space devoted to coffee in my own home. My initial thought was the library, which is located right off the kitchen, so seemed like the ideal spot. I had forgotten how many books we have, however, and realized that all wall space really needed to be devoted to them. So with that plan nixed, my husband suggested the awkward space in the living room.

Since we had a space planned out, all that remained was finding the components and finishing the living room. You may have noticed the deplorable state of the living room walls in the pictures of my chair after I reupholstered it. Not only was the wallpaper half-peeled off the wall, but, due to the previous owners' need to use rough, raw wood everywhere, there had been a half-wall of raw wood (I had the splinters to prove it!), and instead of cutting holes in the wainscoting, they simply put the outlets halfway up the wall (it's above the chair in the pictures).

But now the living room is finished (and the outlets are near the floor)! I may eventually do a post about the room as a whole, so you can see the transformation. It's exciting to have a place I can sit and appreciate.

Anyway, we kept watch for the perfect table for our own coffee bar. Finally, when we were on one of our outings to Ikea, my husband and I saw the perfect piece:

Olofstorp at Ikea. We love its mix of modern color and rustic style. My mother got us a shelf from Wayfair to display our collection of coffee cups, and I set our bar stools, which are just the right height for Olofstorp, on either side as a convenient and comfortable place to sit and talk and enjoy coffee. They need a makeover to match their location, but that will be later. I have a few other things I want to cover first.

I love the final results! The neutral tones of the bar and the black of the shelf pair beautifully with the blue wall and white trim. We have a Keurig and finished out the space with a mini-fridge (the coolest mini-fridge I have ever seen) to hold cold coffee supplies such as cream and milk.