10 DIY Wood Bar Carts

Multi-Tasking

Bar cart, mobile island, or kitchen counter extension? Whatever you choose to use it for, this wood cart built from scratch may be just your thing.

Projected at $75 for all materials, all you need for this cart are moderate woodworking skills, a drill, a table saw, and a jig.

All Wood Bar Cart from Nina Hendrick via Remodelaholic

Outdoor Loving

How can you not love this seriously utilitarian outdoor bar cart? A partial list of its fun features: hook for the corkscrew, another for the towel, a built-in bottle cap opener, a strong top that can hold an ice chest.

Outdoor Bar Cart Project from Table & Hearth via Designer Trapped in a Lawyer's Body

An Unusual Upcycle

Erin Souder at design blog Earnest Home Company promises that this bar cart/table is so simple, even the DIY-averse can do it. What makes it so easy is that it is hacked from the base of another piece of furniture that is entirely unrelated to carts, bars, and tables.  

Amazing enough, she used a wooden director's chair.

She added a wood serving tray to the top, painted it in Sherwin-Williams Lemon Twist to make it stand out against her neutral dining room walls, and–done! Instant bar cart/table with a pop of yellow.

Yellow Bar Cart from Earnest Home Company

Minimalistic

Ashley Rose over at Sugar and Cloth had so many things going on in her life–eradicating a "cesspool of mosquitoes," installing light switches, and fixing an ice maker–that building a wood bar cart from scratch was not part of the plans.  

Ikea's Kallax bookshelf came to the rescue. Using Kallax as a base, she added brass pulls, casters and a few other accessories that dressed up the shelf and made it bar-ready.​

The best thing about using wood as a base is that she had no problem screwing in the casters and pulls, as the soft MDF material is easy to work with.

IKEA Hack Wood Bar Cart from Sugar and Cloth

Natural Scenery

The secret behind this fantastic natural wood bar cart is to use cost-controlling Southern Pine or white wood instead of expensive hardwoods.

Softwoods, too, can be stained darker colors to emulate the look of pricey hardwoods. Just be sure to use a pre-conditioner to avoid blotchy staining.

Anna Liesemeyer provides you with all of the details on her site.

Outdoor DIY Wood Bar from In Honor of Design

Gold and Bold

Not all wood bar carts must look like wood. Cris at StyleAnthropy turned an ordinary Ikea Lack table into a bar cart objet d'art with just a can of spray paint, mirror tiles, and two towel racks. Everything, including the table, costs less than $60.

Gold Wooden DIY Bar Cart from StyleAnthropy

Good Times

Ashley and Whitney over at Shanty 2 Chic had "serious love" for a certain Crate & Barrel bar cart, but not for its $800 price.

For only $150, they built this fantastic copycat bar cart. Being two self-described "power-tool-wielding DIY queens," they decided to build the cart entirely from scratch.

Building plans are laid out in great detail over on their site.

DIY Start-From-Scratch Bar Cart from Shanty 2 Chic

Industrial Look Bar Cart

This bar cart is easy to put together out of wood and plumbing fixtures and costs less than $200. 

Galvanized pipes and fittings are simple to assemble by hand; you don't even need a pipe wrench.

DIY Industrial Style Wood Bar Cart from Thrillist

Uncork and Relax

Oenophiles will love Allen Lau's DIY wood bar cart because it is large enough to accommodate wine bottles on its middle and lower racks.

Inspired by Crate and Barrel's Collins bar cart, this from-scratch creation cost Allen less than $30.

Lau left the wood natural, but you can stain it and apply a protective coating, if you wish.

Wine Rack Bar Cart from The Nifty Nest

A Satisfied Pallet

What's better than combining your desire for a bar cart with that favorite word of all–free? Holly Ledingham did just that when she turned a stack of wood pallets from her local post office into this gorgeous cart.

One tip when using a pallet to make a bar cart: check it for cleanliness. Some pallets are embedded with oil and other toxic materials that are difficult to remove. For that reason, many DIYers choose to purchase clean pallets.

Pallet Wood DIY Bar Cart from My Pinteresting Life