10 DIY Wood Bar Carts

Wood bar carts are warm, traditional and solid. They usually provoke guests to say things like, "Can you build me one?"  Bar carts hit all those fabulous sweet spots except for one problem:  factory-built carts are expensive.

After all, who wouldn't love a cart like Crate & Barrel's classic teak Regatta Console? Few homeowners will love its price, though (hovering around $1,000). There is no need to spend that kind of money when you can build it yourself.  

Creating your own wooden bar cart squarely fits in that category of do-it-yourself home decor projects that won't tax your bank account, your skills or your patience.

Wood carts can look like natural wood or they can adopt an entirely different flavor with just a can or two of spray paint. The takeaway is that wood–unlike metal–is soft, pliable and easy to saw, drill, and sand.  

Upcycle Your Bar Cart

Many DIY wood bar carts begin life as another type of inexpensive and humble cart or shelving unit. Most of these bases cost well under $100.

After that, it's time for accessories like brass or leather handles, hooks, wine bottle holders or anything else you can dream up.

Build Your Bar Cart from Scratch

Other DIY bar carts are built 100% from scratch. While this does require some basic skills and tools, rarely will you need to resort to difficult woodworking techniques like dovetailing and cutting a dado.

Bar cart? Mobile island? 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, table saw and jig.

All Wood Bar Cart from Nina Hendrick via Remodelaholic

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

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

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

The secret behind this fantastic natural wood bar cart is to use cost-controlling Southern Pine or white wood instead of expensive hardwoods. Anna Liesemeyer provides you with all of the details on her site.

Outdoor DIY Wood Bar from In Honor of Design

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, cost less than $60.

Gold Wooden DIY Bar Cart from StyleAnthropy

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 self-described "two power-tool-wielding DIY queens," they decided to build the cart entirely from scratch.

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

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

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

DIY Industrial Style Wood Bar Cart from Thrillist

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.

Wine Rack Bar Cart from The Nifty Nest

What 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.

Pallet Wood DIY Bar Cart from My Pinteresting Life