Furniture can be divided into three categories: pieces you use daily, pieces you use weekly, and pieces you hardly ever use. To a minimalist designer, the latter category is clutter, filling up unnecessary space. A traditionalist will look at that piece differently, allowing it to remain as long as it jives with the rest of the decor. A transitional or functional designer says, “Let’s put that piece to use more often!”
Serving carts are a prime example of a furnishing that can be superfluous unless you’re getting more out of it than the occasional service at a party or social gathering.
7 Ideas to Make A Decorative Serving Cart More Functional
A serving cart can be attractive in its own right but, unless you’re using the piece regularly, it’s also a space hog. Here are ideas to put that piece to use.
- Make it a home bar. Serving carts work great as a small home bar. Put all of the basic – or your favorite – liquors on the top, along with an ice bucket, napkins, a shaker and a glass to hold spoons or stir sticks. Put a few tumblers and wine glasses on the bottom level. Now, happy hour can migrate anywhere you want it and is at the ready when you have a visit from an impromptu guest.
- A kitchen island. Have a small kitchen? Apartment, cottage or townhome dwellers find a serving cart makes a wonderful kitchen island substitute, providing extra “countertop” space for food prep and storage.
- Enjoy fresh flowers. The idea of having a fresh flower arrangement on a weekly basis is lovely, the practicality is less so. It’s difficult for families to find a space where a vase of fresh flowers can sit relatively undisturbed – most of the spaces where it would rest are used on a regular basis, which makes it more of an inconvenience. Your serving cart, however, makes a perfect host for your arrangement, and when it’s tucked diagonally in a corner or along a wall, it won’t be in the way.
- Craft cart for kids. No matter how hard you try, the kids’ craft supplies are rarely returned to their intended location. Why? Because kids draw on the coffee table, the dining room table, the kitchen table, on a book on the floor…etc. Purchase some attractive storage containers and make your serving cart a portable kids’ craft cart they can wheel to where its useful and then wheel back again – making it easier for the miscellaneous supplies to make it back into one spot.
- Your craft cart. Do you love to scrapbook, embroider or sew? Don’t tuck those projects away in a cupboard. Instead, use the same idea as the kids’ craft cart. Organize your crafting materials in tidy, attractive storage containers and keep them out and handy so you can work on your projects more often.
- Use it as an end table. If the height works with a chair or couch in your living or family room area, the cart can serve as an end table – holding a lamp, some magazines or those errant remote controls.
- Plant stand. House plants add color and life to interior decors, and the right plants also improve your indoor air quality. Your serving cart will work as a plant stand. Put the pots on serving trays to protect the stand from water run off and to simplify things when it’s time to relocate the plants while you use the tray.