Post #579389 by kawikasurf on Tue, Mar 8, 2011 11:57 AM

Thanks for checking-in on my little ongoing project.

Turns out it's really hard to get a good photo of the entire area. That's onnacounta, in the area just in front of the lanai (oh, who am I kidding - it's a breezeway), the hillside drops off precipitously. I was able take the above photo only by standing on a small ledge, accessible by three unstable steps hacked tenuously into the hillside by the band of Anasazi cliff dwellers who rented the place before I got there. Perhaps, considering the area's newly-intended use - the consumption of strong drink - the next project should be to erect some sort of restraining barrier, lest someone (me, no doubt) should step off into oblivion while under the influence.

Um, let's see... Which of the elements in this photo don't belong? Yeah, the blue umbrella and the folding chairs have got to go.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was dissatisfied with the previous bar top, which stained far more red than I intended. I sanded it down and re-stained it in a warmer, more golden hue. Works a lot better with the bamboo.

Lacking outdoor refrigeration, I've been using a cooler to hold ice and also, for Philistines of all genders who eschew umbrella drinks, to keep beer bottles cold (cans are not allowed - you have to draw the line somewhere). So anyway, because the gaily-colored plastic cooler detracted from the tiki-ness, I made this little cooler outhouse in which to stash it.

It also serves the purpose of elevating the cooler to a level at which one needn't do toe touches to extract the contents, not to mention risking light-headedness upon the sudden ascent, the latter being an important factor when one is drinking - especially near a ledge.

This photo looks off to the right, while facing the bar. It terminates at a little signpost I made. More about that a little farther down this page.

This photo looks off in the opposite direction - toward the ocean, obscured at that moment by some transient coastal fog. Kind of interesting. It rolls in from offshore and mostly passes through in a few minutes. Then there are the days when it decides to hang around. Everyone else in Southern California, starting just a few hundred yards inland, experiences a sunny, 80 degree day while Laguna Beach mires in 60 degree murk. But then, who said life was fair?

Look, I had to name it something. I couldn't go on forever calling it "Vintage Hostess Stand" now could I? My sincere apology to Steelers fans, whom we regard highly. Also to fans of Minnesota, Chicago, and Dallas, whom, well not so much. (I guess that just about covers the Packer's enemies list). Truly though, no offense is intended - please come sit at my tiki bar. We will share the cup of peace (don't poke-out your eye with the umbrella) and discuss how to bring our warring tribes together to live forever as brothers and sisters.

One more shot from the ledge, as long as the pitons and carabiners were holding and since I had already paid the Sherpa guide for a full hour.

I heard somewhere that set designers and Disney Imagineers trick us into containing our attention within a specific area by placing some sort of visual element that arrests our visual scan at a certain point. There was this old section of PVC pipe lying around the property and so I decided to make an exotic locale signpost to place at the far right end of tiki bar assemblage. An hour or two into the project, after sanding the pipe to roughen the surface, creating an uneven top edge, mounting the pipe to a heavy base, spraying-on a textured, pebbly-looking paint, and trying to figure-out how to reach down far enough inside the pipe to secure the nuts while screwing-in the bolts that hold the signs from the outside, it dawned on me that, for about twenty bucks, I could have purchased a nice length of six inch diameter bamboo from the nice folks at Franks Cane and Rush Supply (they're in Huntington Beach), which, apart from being easier to work with, also would have yielded a superior cosmetic result. Oh well, one must also consider the immense satisfaction that always comes from scoring a free hunk of sewer pipe.

I wondered how I was going to achieve that rustic lettering effect. Turns out that, for me at least, tragically bereft of artistic gifts, the secret was to try as hard as I could to craft beautiful, professional-looking letters. Happily, though not entirely unexpectedly, the result was a script which hovers somewhere between a childish scrawl and the kind of random marks produced when a savage strikes a tree trunk with a dull, stone implement. No doubt, archaeologists of the future will be confounded when trying to divine the meaning. The distances, by the way, are correct while the directions are accurate to within a few degrees, some small license having been taken for aesthetic purposes.

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