Post #280966 by tikinoob on Thu, Jan 25, 2007 2:44 PM

On 2007-01-24 22:59, ShawnJuanTiki wrote:
Any other Floridians with experience concerning this? How about suppliers here in Florida? Really looking for durability and cosmetic appeal. Any takers?

ShawnJuanTiki, if you have the time and are up for it, I totally recommend building the bar yourself!

I am just now putting the finishing touches on my bar in Cape Coral (on TC site to research decorations etc). I have a temporary photo up here: http://www.shackinetics.com It's more of a chickee/tiki hybrid depending on who you ask, but you know - nothing in Florida is really "genuine" anyway, right?

You are dead on point in that you get exactly what you want by doing it yourself... Plus the whole experience is just great, some of the reactions I've gotten have been priceless - the most fun I've had since college no doubt.

Are you totally set on bamboo? I can't help you a whole lot with sources for that - my bar is cedar & cypress. It's largely based on designs from Tikikev.com with my own modifications for kegerator, kick rail, and gigabit networking :) The Cypress (poles) I picked up from a guy in Kissimmee: http://www.palmhuts.com/ They were extremely friendly and helpful and were really the only people I could find willing to sell me raw cypress. Other than that and the palm fronds (scavenged from all around Lee County) pretty much all materials came from Home Depot. There's another place I looked for lumber and thatching that's probably closer to you: acethatch.com but they're pretty pricy (more industrial, do work for disney etc) from what I remember. The suggestion above to scavenge for discarded bamboo might be a good one, unless your project is going to be large-ish - it's kind of nice to get all your materials in a more convenient way than driving around again & again... plus you never know what kind of creatures you drag home with you. For me, collecting palm thatching introduced several new species of ants, wasps, and frogs to my backyard.

Since my bar is pretty much brand new I can't give you any first-hand knowledge of how well it'll all truly hold up in our area, but from what I've been told cedar and cypress are pretty much the cream of the crop. Cedar is well-renowned for it's natural resistance and cypress to just a slightly lesser degree I believe - I figure it was/is the wood of choice for the Seminoles for a reason... In the design I used, everything from the bar-top on down is heavily varnished as well. As you should be able to see from the photo my bar/hut is situated in between our screenroom and a very dense/mature line of areca palms (and a 4ft. fence) along my side yard. My only piece of advice is make sure you're comfortable with how protected it will be inside your screenroom. Choosing an area where it's sheltered from the wind on a few sides will be a good idea, both for the bar's longevity, and your ability to sleep at night. After the finishing touches on mine, the next step is installing some brackets or eyes for strapping it down during storms.

Let me know if there's anything else I can answer for you, I'd love to help out anyone I can. If you're interested in this type of design, I can certainly tell you a few tips on what to do and not do. I had a lot of helpful/generous people help me along the way and I definitely plan on passing the "tiki cheer" along...

Note to others - I plan on getting a proper introduction of my bar put together on the forums here once I have all the finishing touches done. Right now mounting some carvings and finishing rope trim etc...

cheers!