Do you ever daydream about recreating the ambience of your favorite coffee shop in your own home? Here are eight ideas you can try out!
1. Skip the TV?
Here’s something to take note of: most coffee shops don’t have a television. Unlike bars that have a thousand TVs in every direction bombarding you with sports or music videos, coffee shops are intentionally quiet. They play background music that’s subtly appealing and relaxing without being intrusive to their customers’ conversations or study time. If you’re trying to create a coffee shop ambience in your main living area, you might want to consider skipping the TV, or at least concealing it in a cabinet when not in use.
2. Small Seating Groups
Coffee shops set up the seating with single people or couples in mind. The way they do that is by creating multiple small groupings. To keep the arrangement from being boring, they vary the groupings. You can steal the same ideas:
- Bistro table. A bistro table is small and has small chairs. This grouping creates an intimate seating by itself. If you enjoy using a bistro table at the coffee shop as a computer desk, you can create the same effect at home.
- Club chairs. In between the bistro tables or across the coffee shop, you might see some club chairs. These are comfortable enough to sit in and have a conversation for a while, but upright enough so people don’t tend to fall asleep in them. They’re great reading chairs. In your home, pair them with a coffee table or ottoman to create another variation of a small seating group.
- Bar tables. One of the ways that coffee shops create lots of intimate conversation space with people right next to each other is to vary the seating heights. A bar-height table by a window or along a wall makes the space less uniform and, as a result, more relaxed.
Although creating small groupings is a little different from what I would normally recommend for a seating room arrangement in your home, I see no problem with this if the coffee shop vibe appeals to you.
3. Java Colors
Coffee shops are in business to sell you coffee, of course! So naturally, they tend to use coffee-inspired colors as part of their visual branding. Shades of beige, brown, taupe, and caramel are popular in both large chains and independent coffee shops. Coffee inspiration aside, these colors are also inviting, warm, and calming. You can follow this lead in your coffee shop room by using different neutral shades on your walls and in some of your furniture, art, or accessory pieces.
4. Wall Coverings and Textures
Coffee shops often use textured or embellished paper on their walls that complement the java color scheme. In your own home, try a neutral-colored wallpaper with a botanical or abstract pattern. You can also try a wallpaper with texture like grasscloth, which will give the room subtle depth. Murals of photographs show up in coffee shops, but might not work too well in the smaller scale of a house. A large-scale sepia-colored map, or wallpaper with a map theme, would strike a better balance in your home.
5. Wood or Tile Floors
Coffee shops are rarely carpeted. If you want to create a full-immersion coffee shop experience, consider installing a tile or wood floor. I still recommend rugs for your home, both for coziness and sound absorption. Stay with the java color palette described above. If in doubt, use the darkest shade of brown on your floor. This brings visual weight to the floor, anchoring the rest of the decor and helping it to feel more grounded.
6. Bookshelves and Reading Material
Local coffee shops often provide reading material, such as books and magazines, for their customers. Only a a few people tend to take advantage, but it’s a nice amenity to have. If you’re not a reader, but you want to offer this amenity to guests or simply recreate the inviting look in your home, you can sometimes buy books by the yard at flea markets, used book stores, or online. Vary your bookshelf displays for more interest—stack some books horizontally, some vertically, and some with the covers facing out.
Mix in art and accessories to liven up the shelves, too. Since you’re going with a coffee shop theme, feel free to use mugs, cups, saucers, and coffee tins among your accessories.
7. Memory Board
Coffee shops usually display bulletin boards featuring local event posters and business cards. To adapt this idea for your home, hang an attractive memory board on one of the walls and display recent tickets, playbills, brochures, or other ephemera. Be careful to minimize visual clutter, though: keep everything inside the bounds of the memory board and only one layer deep. If you swap in new items regularly, it can function as a living scrapbook to remind you of recent fun times.
8. Accent Lighting
The most inviting coffee shops create interesting effects with lighting. They wash the walls with a soft light from a picture lamp. They use indirect lighting above shelves. And they have sleek or artful pendant lights at the bar. Installing professionally designed lighting is an expensive proposition, however. For your home, I recommend table and floor lamps, which will create soft and comfortable light that replicates the accent lighting effect in coffee shops. Be sure to choose lamps that coordinate with the materials and colors you’ve used throughout the room.
I would also be on the lookout for at least one striking accent light to give the space personality. A lamp like the one shown below does more than just light your reading or writing. Its oversized graceful curve makes it eye-catching as well. You can find more lighting ideas in my Layered Lighting Guide ebook.
Bonus Tip: A Black Ceiling
A common feature of coffee shops is a black ceiling. This doesn’t necessarily make it a great idea for your home, however. Coffee shops use other features that make this look work to their advantage:
- The ceilings are usually tall. Often the ceiling is actually the “roof deck” of the building. Everything that’s usually above the ceiling in a restaurant—piping, wires, and ductwork—is exposed out in the open. Since the ceilings are tall, the black color tends to recede rather than press down on the space.
- Downlights keep the space bright. Regularly spaced downlights on the ceiling compensate for its light-absorbing black color.
Can you use this idea in your home? Possibly. Here are my suggestions to make it work:
- Try this if you’re not moving anytime soon. Only try a black ceiling concept if you’re planning to stay in your home for a while. This is uncommon and might be seen as a negative to prospective home buyers.
- Use contact paper, not paint. To avoid a real estate valuation issue later on, try a black contact paper instead of paint. The contact paper peels right off, so you can easily remove it if you decide to put your home on the market in the future.
- Plan on a lot of lights. A black ceiling will absorb a lot of the light in the room, so you’ll need to install downlights or add more lamps than you normally would.
Try This at Home!
I hope you found some useful nuggets here to bring a coffee shop vibe into your home. For more casual decor ideas, take a look at this article. Got any questions? Leave a comment below!
