Shopping Mission: 70s-Inspired Thrifted Home Bar

A new series, in which I deploy all of my shopping superpowers to accomplish missions implausible.

It’s time for a shopping mission! I am stuck in bed, recovering from surgery, and nothing makes me happier than a little window shopping. And what better to shop for than barware? In this mission, I’ll focus on thrifted or vintage pieces from Goodwill, eBay, and Etsy. The goal: a groovy bar setup with good vibes, perfect for your home or apartment.

Hope you enjoy! And if you have a shopping mission that you’d like help with, send me a note.

For this bar design, we’re gonna start with a statement piece: This groovalicious 1970s acrylic painting (Goodwill, $49.99).

The color palette is so strong here: that bright tomato red, magenta, and royal purple. It’ll be a perfect keystone for the rest of our design. At 24x24 inches, it’s perfect for a smaller area but has a lot of graphic impact.

Moving onto glassware. In this bar, we’ll have fun with voluminous shapes and retro color.

Let’s start with a decanter. This vintage Viking piece (eBay, $79.99) is fabulous, and I love the ruby red color.

The roundness of the decanter echoes the shapes of the painting deliciously.

These golden stemless glasses (Etsy, $75) are perfect, and can be used for wine, punch, or neat spirits. I love the color and how warm they’ll look in candle or neon light.

For your spritzes and fizzes, let’s add some fun branded glasses to the mix. What’s new pussycat?? This set is too cool to be true, and for $35 it’s a steal.

To finish off our glassware selection, let’s get these sexy French martini glasses with black stems (Etsy, $55). I’m obsessed with them. Imagine a tall, cold martini in one of these babies:

Lighting is something we can take in a few different directions here. Are you a bit kitschy? Continue the pussycat theme with this retro siamese cat lamp (Goodwill, $61):

Want something a little more industrial and timeless? This is such a cool tabletop fixture that would be equally at home in a 1920s theme or 1970s. (Goodwill, $27)

For something a bit more subtle that ties into our color scheme, consider this vintage Italian table lamp in a rich blackberry. (Etsy, $76)

No bar is complete without an ashtray! Here are two of my favorites that would fit well in this design. They can also be used to hold toothpicks or matchbooks.

Black ceramic ashtray (Goodwill, $9.99):

Vintage pipe-shaped Japanese ashtrays (Goodwill, 2 for $9.99):

Well, that just about wraps up today’s ~shopping mission~! Let me know what you think - would you mix up a Harvey Wallbanger in this bar?

Thanks for reading!

-Sarah