This is a guest post courtesy of Paul Agelidis, the Founder and Owner at Revolucion, a cigar, tobacco and men’s gift shop in beautiful Vancouver, BC.
If you’re a huge cigar aficionado that always dreamed of making a space in your home into your own cigar lounge, now’s the time to make it happen. It doesn’t have to be that ambitious or expensive to get started, and over time you can add more to it as you have the time and money.
However, if you’re not sure where or how to get started in designing a real cigar lounge, here are our tips on how to design a cigar lounge in your home.
Pick an Ideal Location
First, you’ll want to pick where in your home to have your cigar lounge. Unless everyone else in your home is as much of a cigar smoking enthusiast as you, you’ll want somewhere that can contain the smoke without it escaping throughout the rest of the home. Most people like to use the basement since it is easier to regulate the temperature for your cigars — however, it’s also moister which is bad for cigars.
The two most two ideal locations to build a cigar lounge are either in a separate shed that you can build on your property just for a cigar lounge or in an attic. Attics usually have very good ventilation, and since smoke rises, you don’t have to worry about the smoke spreading in your home.
They’re like garages or basements in that they tend to be more unused spaces, which is convenient for not taking up extra space by commandeering a room that was being used for something else.
Determine How To Deal with the Smoke
If you have your lounge within your home, you’ll need to have some way of dealing with the smoke to prevent it from spreading throughout your home. How much of a problem that is depends on how much your family or housemates like or dislike cigar smoke.
If you don’t have your lounge in an attic, it would help to install an exhaust fan in the room to pull the smoky air outside. Alternatively, you can buy an air purifier — particularly a HEPA filter as the highest quality type to clear the air of smoke when you’re done.
In general, the best way to prevent smoke from spreading is by using a two-step approach: first, have the room thoroughly insulated with spray foam to seal any holes, cracks, nooks, and crannies that smoke could get through; second, have some kind of ventilation outside for the smoke to travel, so it doesn’t build up and settle in the room.
Plan Your Storage
Next, you’ll want to plan out all of the necessary storage you’ll need in the cigar lounge for all of your things. If you’re just getting started, you’ll want the basics to storing all your cigars and accessories:
- A humidor for the cigars, ideally a cabinet humidor
- A drawer or container for your lighter, matches, cutter, and other accessories
- An ashtray and place to dump the ashes of your cigar when you’re done
If you want to go a bit further, you can also include some kind of shelf or storage to hold bottles of liquor and some glasses so you can enjoy your favorite beverage to accompany a cigar. You can either get some generic cabinets and storage furniture to get you started, or you can buy custom storage specifically made to store cigars and accessories.
Add Some Furnishings
The last step is to put your personal stamp on the lounge with how you furnish the room. The furnishings should be chosen according to both to what suits your personal style as well as what would make the room comfortable for you to be in.
This includes any chairs or couches, the flooring and shelving, and so on. There are a few general rules that all cigar lounges should follow:
- Avoid softer and more porous surfaces that absorb smoke
- Choose darker color tones to hide any smoke or soot stains
- Go with leather, stone, glass or metal materials for furniture as they resist absorbing smoke
If you ever wondered why cigar lounges tended to have black leather couches with stone-surfaced tabletops and no rugs or carpets, now you know. If you choose furniture that has wood, make sure it’s a hard and dense wood to avoid absorbing smoke. You can also look into moving some of your personal bookshelves and other furnishings or accessories to fill out the lounge space into your comfort zone.
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Paul Agelidis has been the founder and owner of Revolucion, a Canadian cigar, tobacco and men’s gift shop in Vancouver, since 2005. For the last decade, Paul has worked very hard to become an expert in tobacco products, men’s care, travel & accessories, body & bath, and gifts & home. Prior to 2005, from 1997 – 2005 Paul worked in the wholesale cigar industry and traveled to the annual cigar trade show (Habanos Festival every February). He loves to share his tips with others who are looking to achieve a complete lifestyle with the finer things in life.
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