I made a coffee bar in my kitchen! When my mom started living with us part-time last fall, I bought a Keurig because that makes it really easy for her to get her first cup of coffee even if she wakes up long before me. But the Keurig and its coffee pod storage took up a lot of space on my counter -- space I couldn't use for anything else anymore. Not only that, but reaching coffee mugs in the cabinets was tricky for my mom, since she has Parkinson's and that affects her balance and movements.
So, I decided to make a coffee bar to make coffee and mugs more accessible for my mom, and also for any guests. Now that she lives here part of the time, we get a lot more guests because her friends from near and far like to come out and spend some time with her. I figure it's nice to not make guests wonder how your coffee maker works, where you keep your coffee grounds, if you have creamer, and so on. Everyone can figure out a Keurig pretty quickly, especially an ultra-simple one like mine.
Long, long ago, when our first baby was less than a year old, we bought a huge old dry sink at the Salvation Army. It was a perfect changing table for many years. Once my kids outgrew diapers, it became a combination extra kitchen storage space below, and a catch-all for my stuff above. In the past few years, it's transformed into a sort of strategic planning zone where I could keep my bullet journal, stickers, letters that need to be answered, and random things I needed to deal with in the immediate future.
In other words, it had become a giant mess:
I knew it could be ideal as a coffee bar. It's a little lower than my counters, so my mom can easily reach everything there. It's not huge, so she should be able to stand in one place and access everything. It was originally a dry sink, so it's easy to clean and not a stranger to moisture. All I had to do was clean it all off, rehome everything that I had been storing on top of it, and pick up a few small accessories!
Yeah, it took me about two weeks to do all that. But, it's finished at last!
I already had the cute sign that says "Coffee and friends make the perfect blend." I picked up a rubber mat to go under my Keurig and make cleaning up spills easier. I bought a mug tree online. I picked up a couple of new mugs at the thrift store so that Mom and guests could have some drinkware choices. And I used a gift card that I won in a giveaway to buy a cute little mug-shaped basket to hold flavored coffee creamers. So, now I have a coffee bar!
I also ordered a mini table-top trash can, but that has been delayed in shipping, so I'll have to change this up a bit once that arrives. Still, I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I hope it makes mornings easier for my mom when she's staying here and more fun for our future guests.
