How to Build Your Own Outdoor Bar

If you love having people round to socialise and you’re ready to take on a bit of a bigger project, why not build your own DIY garden bar? It’s not as hard or as expensive as you might think!

What you’ll need:

• Frenchic Al Fresco Paint
• The raw materials to build the frame (see recommendations in Step 1)
• A small hand-held paint sprayer or a selection of paintbrushes
• Various tools to build the frame
• Sandpaper
• Frenchic Browning Wax

Method:

Step 1 – Build the frame

First, you’ll need to build the frame. To do this, we recommend using 3 x 2 tanalised timber and then cladding it with some old pallet wood.

The easiest way to do this is to build the basic frame first, lie it flat on the ground and then position each slat onto the frame to construct the sides. Make sure you leave a small gap between the panels to allow space for the wood to expand in warmer weather.

When you’re happy with how it looks, screw the slats in place using an electric screwdriver.

Step 2 - Add the paint

As with other large items of garden furniture, we’d recommend using a paint sprayer to paint the frame more quickly and to do two coats to fully weatherproof the wood. Frenchic Al Fresco paint is the perfect option here, as it is seal-sealing and UV resistant.

To give your outdoor bar a more unique look, you can try creating a gradient effect, where the slats start off darker at one end of the bar and gradually get lighter. To do this, simply mix around 5% of the lighter colour into the darker one as you move along each slat, using a paintbrush for precision.

Tip: Apply a light base colour first and don’t forget to wipe off your brush after each panel!

Step 3 - Top it off

Once you’ve finished the frame, you’ll then need to top your bar off. To keep costs down, we recommend using a sheet of environmentally friendly OSB board and applying a protective layer of our durable furniture wax to seal it.

For the purposes of this tutorial, we used our popular browning wax to darken the wood, but you can use whatever colour you prefer.

When coating the wood with the wax, apply a heavy layer using a paintbrush and leave it to sink in for 15-20 minutes. After that time, you can firmly buff it out with an old rag to create your final polished look.

Feeling inspired? View the full DIY Garden Makeover video and step-by-step guide for more outdoor furniture ideas.