Post #776880 by Prikli Pear on Sun, Jun 11, 2017 8:49 PM

VampiressRN, the pool is ours and going nowhere. The Wife will fight you for it! We really lucked into this place when we were home shopping a few years back. We actually looked at this place early on, just to get a feel for the market, and were gobsmacked by the pool, palms and overall tropical feel. But it was out of our price range. To make a long story short, we sold our old house and the house we had under contract fell through in the worst possible way. We were less than two weeks away from being homeless when the owners of this one lowered the price enough for us to make it work. So, yay to not being homeless! We weren't sure if having a pool would be a curse or a blessing, but the kids were super-excited. Nowaways, the kids hardly ever get in but Mom and Dad hit it every evening!

Ryan, thanks for the kind words! Yes, this is my first tiki bar build, but I've done wood work projects before, so it's not like I'm completely wet behind the ears. I've got zero experience working with bamboo prior to this, or designing thing to withstand exposure to the elements, insects, relentless onslaught of dust and dirt, etc. So yeah, pretty steep learning curve. The great thing is that I don't have to post photos of all my blunders! :wink:

Thanks for the tips, Skip! I'll see if I can retrofit a proper-sized dowel rod in there. Burning was interesting, as the first batch I didn't burn enough--just enough to change it from bright green-blue to olive drab. It wasn't until I got to work on my second harvest that I realized I'd not quite pushed it far enough. I built a hanging rack on the garage ceiling and have several dozen 8' culms aging up there now. I'd like to find a (free) source for thicker bamboo around here, but it all seems to be pretty much the same thing. Once I get the pergola installed (was supposed to be my big project this spring, but other priorities intervened) I'm going to add some clumping bamboo to the landscaping. But I won't be able to harvest any of that for some years to come. I have to say I've been reading your lamp-building threads with great interest. I've got a couple modest-scale projects in progress, and am taking cues from some of your work. So thanks for all the time you spent working up those how-tos. They're very helpful and appreciated.