Post #575297 by Paisleyumbrella on Tue, Feb 8, 2011 9:37 PM

I've always wanted to post. I found a Tiki Farm bar on craigslist for $75 in Summer '09, brought it home, realized I was a bachelor, so I might as well have a tiki bar. It fit my interests anyway since I'm into mid century modern design. Also, having a grad degree in anthropology, it seemed somewhat sarcastic to have a fascination for an American craze based on seeing others as "exotic" and "primitive", so the journey began. I had a little bit of guidance and tons of enthusiasm, advice, and encouragement from my awesome friend (and yours) Formikahini. I started only wanting vintage mugs. None of that new stuff except for mugs from the great and long missed local dive, Oceans 11. I started to like the Tiki Farm stuff, started collecting more, found a great mid century lamp on ebay for really cheap bought swizzle sticks, straws, scorpion and volcano bowls, you name it. The first shot is what I had as of October:

I also had a shelf purchased in December of '09, but still was running out of room, which all include for all you fellow tiki addicts to look at:

So I'm out of room! I posted on Tiki Central trying to find another shelf, got the hookup to Joe Tatar at Modern HQ via Bamboo Ben, and got an estimate of 600 not included the fabric or shipping. A friend said that I should try something different in order to avoid having my 650 square foot apartment look like Tiki Bar Warehouse. It took a few months and a lot of looking. Originally, I thought lining a wall with shallow shelves might work, but they would be like CD shelves, which aren't cheap in that size. Also, I'm not carpentry minded, so I'd make a mess if I tried to make anything. All that centering, cutting, cutting in a straight line, not for me. I have very little hand/eye coordination. However, I realized I could buy some narrow shelf units from Ikea, put some lights in them, and there we have it! I did that. They looked cool, but the looked like shelves I bought at Ikea and then put some lights in them. Besides, they were a little deep and either I could have a few mugs on each shelf for a nice display, or I could just use them as storage.

I needed to take another step so they actually looked tiki. Bamboo trim was a great idea! I found a bamboo farm in Austin, got pieces cut, and took them home. I found out the cuts for the shelves were too small, so I cut the longer pieces for the height and carefully drilled holes in them to nail into the shelves with finishing nails. Good results so far. At a friend's suggesting, I got wider pieces cut for the height. That worked out well. I cured the pieces, which one does by heating them with a heat gun or in my case, a creme brulee torch. The wax rises to the surface, and then one wipes it with a lint free cloth. The bamboo looks smoother and shinier, aside from having its own natural finish.

I also had a shelf mounted in the middle of the wall. I thought it would be a great idea to trim that too, so I got 2.75 width pieces for it. Now here's the tricky part. I wanted the trim on the shelf cut and fitted at an angle, just like on the Tiki Farm shelf. I went through trial and error with a Dremel, a miter with its own saw, and finally, a Japanese pull saw. The pull saw worked!

Only I needed an extra 7/8ths of an inch to make the trim for the sides fit perfectly and all the pieces were cut, so a 7/8in wedge at 45degrees was cut. Here were the results finished last week:

Something missing.

straw, grass, or bamboo matting for the back of the shelves, and something to light the middle shelf with. Back to Ikea. A 10 roll of woven grass, and a revamped set of changing color LED strip lights now with a hand controller. Voila!

Mug shots. We're all about the mugs.

In retrospect, strip lights in bottom front of the shelves with thicker bamboo trim to hide them would have been better, but the strip lights are 50 for a set of 4, and I have 15 shelves. Nix that for now. Also, the selective burning I did on the bamboo was a little silly, I think. One more thing. Duh, it's a tiki bar. Red lights!

I know it's not nearly as impressive as those of you who own houses and can devote whole rooms, basements, and outdoor areas to our shared obsession, but I thought submitting my own little tiki bachelor pad souped up bar might let you know that you can do a lot with a small space. I love the results and I love coming home to it. Of course, I'll run out of room for the mugs soon, but that's another photo essay. I also have a mid century cone fireplace that's converted into a tiki terrarium, but I'll save that for another time. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story and the pics.

Mahalo,

Michael

[ Edited by: Paisleyumbrella 2011-02-08 21:39 ]

[ Edited by: paisleyumbrella 2011-02-11 07:39 ]