Cheap and Easy Whiskey Home Bar Lighting
If you are here at TheWhiskeyLibrary.com then you might have more than just a few whiskey bottles sitting on a self somewhere. Until recently, my bottles were crammed into a book shelf collecting dust. It was only when I pulled all of my whiskey collection out to dust it that I realized just how many bottles I had accumulated and forgot about! Seeing them all on the table made me realize that this could be a cool decorative piece in my place. I also felt that displaying them would help me keep a better inventory of my home whiskey bar.
I moved the bottles out from within the book shelf to the top of the shelf. Better? Yes, but something was still missing. Queue the lights!
My whiskey bar was missing proper back lighting. Earlier this year I installed some inexpensive, under cabinet LED lighting and had a few extra light strips. I pulled those out, set them behind the bottles, turned them on, and…. I was very close. It looked awesome and I definitely had my whiskey home bar lights, but there were two minor and quickly corrected issues.
First, the lighting is very harsh and direct from each of the LED lights on the strip. There are individual lights every centimeter or so. I noticed this during my under cabinet install as well and diffused the light to a less harsh glow with some simple wax paper. I cut the wax paper to size and taped a piece over each strip.
Second, the LED lighting is very cold in color even though the LE Dimmable lights advertise a “warm white.” The whiskey colors do warm the bar lighting up a bit, but the light bouncing off the ceiling was returned a cold white. My remedy was a simple light filter gel used for stage lights. I cut the filters down to size and taped them on over the wax paper from the step above. They can be picked up cheaply here. This second step is about color preference. You may have darker walls so the bare LED lights may work for you, or you may want a different color altogether. Either way is totally acceptable!
There it is. Home whiskey bar lighting under fifty dollars and less than thirty minutes to set up. Not a bad Saturday morning project.
Did this work for you? Let us know in the comments below!