Khan_Tiki_Mon's Bar and Lounge 7/26/2008 update

I am starting this thread so I can share the progress, or lack thereof, in the creation of my Tiki bar and lounge. My first little project to share is my shark jaws. I picked up 2 sets of shark jaws while vacationing on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I wanted to display them in the Tiki lounge. I decided to wire them to a board and then hang them from the wall like a painting. What I did was to cut out two shapes from plywood. One is just an oval but the other I cut in the shape of a shark. I painted them black so the shark outline is like a silhouette. I wired the jaws to the cutouts. I put up fishing nets and floats, the shark jaws, and a metal "danger no swimming sharks" sign. I added some glass floats hanging from the ceiling to make it a little more 3 dimensional.


The shark jaws.

Plywood cut-out before painting.

[ Edited by: khan_tiki_mon 2008-05-25 18:10 ]

[ Edited by: khan_tiki_mon 2008-07-26 14:39 ]

Sharktastic! Pour some drinks and take more pix.

OOOOOOH...I'll have a Sharks Tooth!!! Fabulous job so far. :)

Shark's Tooth Recipe

1.0 fill with Club Soda
0.25 oz. Grenadine
0.5 oz. Lemon juice
0.5 oz. Lime juice
1.5 oz. Dark Rum

Directions: Add all ingredients except club soda to a mixing glass filled with ice. Shake and strain into glass filled with ice. Fill with club soda.

In my Telstar Lounge I make a drink called a Stingray. It's a vodka martini minus the vermouth. It's shaken gently but for long enough to get the vodka really cold--heck keep the vodka in the freezer I say--and then when served dribble in enough grenadine with a dropper so that it looks like a swirl of blood. Too much grenadine and the drink becomes pretty craptastic. Of course when I make martinis with Bombay Sapphire Gin, I dip a toothpick in blue food coloring and swirl it in the poured martini because Bombay Sapphire Gin SHOULD BE BLUE!

Yes, I know the above is blasphemy and not tiki.

Faux Tapa Paint Effect.
I painted a border around the Tiki lounge. I used a faux tapa paint effect. Tapa cloth (mahute), as found on Easter Island, was made of Mullberry bark. The cloth was painted in designs similar to tattoo patterns. Tapa cloth was used for many items including clothing and folk crafts. My border was painted to resemble tapa. I painted an undercoat for the border. I made stamps to put the designs on the border. For the stamps I cut the designs out of styrofoam. I cut blocks from old plywood and then glued the styrofoam to the blocks.

A before picture. Plain wall without the border. My print "Balinese Girl" by Jan Hoowij and some reproduction Balinese masks.

A picture of the undercoat. Some prints by Sam Gambino.


I ended up doing most of the work free hand with a foam brush.


These are the stamps I made. They worked okay but I still had to touch them up with a small brush.

Completed section. I'll post more pictures once I have some of my art collection up.

I have started framing and hanging some of my art collection.





My wife went to Costa Rica to visit relatives and she brought me back this wind chime made from coconut and bamboo with a bird that's neck moves in the breeze. It's pretty cool and I hung it near my Enchanted Tiki Room print and my Shag 40th Anniversary of the Enchanted Tiki Room print. After she gave me the wind chime that she brought back all the way from Costa Rica I was at Bass Pro Shops and they had the exact same wind chime. Probably made in China.

cool as hell none the less. the room is really taking shape. great collection of prints!! mahalo for posting- keep 'em coming!!

My newest addition to the Tiki lounge is my Coco Joe's display. I made a light box out of some scrap leftover lumber I had lying around. I painted the box black. I added two compact fluorescent under cabinet lights. I attached the light box to the wall and then hung my Coco Joe's placques inside. It makes for a nice display.

That Coco Joe's light box is sooo sweet. Nice job.

The wife gave me an ultimatum. She said if I bought anymore Tiki stuff without displaying everything I already had she was going to start "smashing stuff". Seemed a bit harsh to me but....she's probably just crazy enough... So, I needed a shelf / cabinet to display my Tiki mug collection. I saw a shelf I liked at Ikea. The nearest Ikea is a four or five hour drive for me. We were visiting my wife's brother and went to the Ikea in Pennsylvania and I saw some shelves I liked. They were fairly reasonably priced and so I thought I'll order them on the internet. The shipping was $250.00, which is more than what the shelves cost. I decided to build my own Tiki mug shelf. I decided to use up some of the scrap and left over lumber I have laying around. A Tiki mug shelf built from recycled materials as in crap I had laying around the house. That was the plan.

First I started with a sheet of plywood, left over from I can't remember what. It's been in my shed for at least ten years. I put the top and bottom on.


I only had the one sheet of plywood so I made the sides with some chipboard. That was left over from building the shed where the plywood was stored. That makes the chipboard older than the plywood, I think.


The carcass of the Tiki mug shelf. Not looking very Tiki like yet but that's coming.

I am installing cleats to support the shelves. I am hopefully overbuilding as I don't want a shelf falling down and then my precious mugs going crashing to the Earth.


Once the face frame is on at the top and bottom of the cabinet there will be cavities painted in black with lights.

Top lights installed.

Bottom lights installed. I did buy the lights. And I did buy paint. So, it's not 100 percent from crap I had laying around but I'm still happy to be using some materials up.

Next step I need to finish the wiring.

This looks like a good place for a Tiki sconce.

Today I am putting up the Tiki sconce I got from Tiki-smith.

I am hard wiring the sconce so I needed to add a box. I put the box in and fished the wire. I didn't like the look just mounting the sconce on the wall. I got a placemat at Pier One and put on the wall under the sconce.

The sconce is in two pieces which made installation very easy and will make changing light bulbs very easy.

I haven't got juice to the box yet so no picture with the sconce lit yet.

Here is a Tiki mug case update. I was going to put all the wiring inside the cavity on the side of the cabinet. The instructions that came with the lights said several times not to put the wiring inside the cabinet. I ended up doing the wiring on the back of the cabinet.

The lights work great. There is one controller for the six lights and they have three settings and work off one three way switch.