Social Hour Calls For A DIY Industrial Pipe Coffee Bar Cart

DIY furniture can often be daunting. But really who doesn’t love a compliment on a cool piece of furniture in your home, like a DIY coffee bar cart.

So with a little elbow grease and a few supplies, you can create your own pipe bar cart in less than an hour. And the best part is that you can make it whatever size you want for your space.

Use this shelf as a makeshift coffee bar cart in a spare corner of your kitchen, extra storage in your office, or as a bookshelf in your bedroom. A coffee station is a versatile piece that could work in almost any room of the house!

What is a Coffee Cart?

It’s a mini coffee station you’ll find in someone’s home or an office setting. You can help yourself to a cup to pour coffee or make tea with cream and sugar.

There are technically two types of coffee carts: the in-home carts, which we are covering in this article, and the coffee stands that are a mini businesses on wheels.

What You Need for a Coffee Station at Home

How extravagant do you want your cart to be? Your cart can be as simple or decadent as you’d like it.

The necessities for your cart include:

Coffee makers like a Keurig or Espresso machine
Electric kettle
Coffee and tea
Cream and sugar
Cups
Spoons
Napkins

How to Organize a Coffee Bar

There are several ways to organize your cart, from hanging your cups to storing everything in containers.

Some of the best ideas to organize your cart include:

Using labeled containers to store your creams and sugars.
Hang your coffee cups on the side of the cart underneath the first shelf.
Store coffee cups in a basket or stack them.
Place the necessities on top of the cart and the extras on the bottom shelf.

How to Decorate a Coffee Cart

Decorating your cart can be fun and easy! Use things like:

Houseplants
Matching cups and containers
Labeled containers
Color coordinated accessories
Books
Flowers
Lights

These decorations will give your cart character and bring it to life.

Other Materials You Can Use to Build a Coffee Cart

In this project, we use industrial pipes to build this coffee cart. But you could also upcycle old furniture like dressers or bookshelves and turn them into a bar cart.

You can use wood or plastic materials to build a cart. You could also use a countertop or a shelf for a coffee station.

Supplies You Need to Build a Coffee Station:

drill with phillips head bit and small regular bit for pre-drilling
black spray paint (optional)
3 pieces of wood all cut to the same size (your local hardware store should be able to cut this for you if you don’t have a table saw)
4 swivel casters (2 with locks)
16 flanges (3/4 inch used here)
4 12 inch pipes (3/4 inch used here)
4 10 inch pipes (3/4 inch used here)
box of short screws- at least 32
pencil

Step by Step Guide: Build a Coffee Bar Cart With Pipes:

Step 1: Spray painting

Here we started by spraying all of our pipe black. This step is optional. You can leave your pipe as is or spray a uniform color with spray paint.

Step 2: Building shelf

To build the shelf, start by connecting a flange to the top and bottom of each piece of pipe and set aside.

You should have 4 longer pipes and 4 shorter pipes.

Step 3: First shelf

Using one of the 3 pieces of wood, lay on a flat surface. This piece will be the top. Then place your 4 smaller pipes in all 4 corners.

With a pencil, mark the spots of the holes in the flanges.

Here we used 2 screws per flange- directly opposite each other in the circle- instead of 4 so that there is a little more give to compensate for the potential variance in size of your pipes as they are not always cut perfectly equal.

Step 4: Market holes drill

Pre-drill your marked holes.

Step 5: Screwing

Screw each pipe flange in place.

Step 6: Attach second shelf

You will now end up with a pice of wood with 4 pipes sticking up in 4 corners.

Lay your second board on the flat surface and flip the first board with pipes over so that the flanges that aren’t connected are laying flat on board #2 in the matching corners.

Repeat steps #3-5.

Step 7: Continue

Then for the second tier, use the 4 leftover longer pieces of pipe.

And repeat steps #3-6 until you 2 tiers are complete with wood on the top, middle, and bottom for your shelves.

Step 9: Casters

Finally, with your shelf upside down, attach 4 casters in each corners of the wood piece that will be on the bottom.

Use the 2 locking casters in opposite corners. This will allow you to lock the shelf in place.

Fill your shelves up and invite your friends over to drink some coffee and show off your handy work!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)FAQ

Are coffee carts expensive?

Buying a cart can be as cheap or expensive as you can afford. Many mobile coffee stations are priced anywhere from $150 to $1,000.

Where to buy a coffee cart?

You can find a variety of carts shopping online from Wayfair, Etsy, or Amazon. You might also find them in stores like Walmart or Home Depot.

What else can you use a coffee cart for?

Carts can be convenient for storing toiletries in your bathroom, craft supplies, alcohol and beverages, and storing dinnerware.

How do you clean a coffee cart?

Clean your cart with a cloth and all purpose cleaner or warm water and soap by wiping down any storage containers and moving everything to clean the shelves.