Hapa Haole Hideaway Rebuild Again! - Open

On 2008-11-02 06:35, Howland wrote:
As far as the padded arm rest goes--I have never made a padded arm rest before but have used the 'tack-strip' method of upholstery on furniture pieces and the best way I can explain it is.....to draw it out for you. Something like this:

1 - Stand in front of the 'customer' side of the bar.

2 - Lay the fabric out with the good side against the bar top. Line up the edge closest to you with the edge of the bar, the fabric should drape towards/over the 'working side of the bar.

3 - Attach with tack-strip, staples, really good glue, or some combination therein.

4 - Attach your padding to the customer edge of the bar and pull the fabric over the padding. This will conceal the tack-strip/nails/glue.

5 - starting from the center of the bar, pull the fabric tight and staple to the underside of the bar. Work from the center towards the edge, go a little bit in each direction, then the other, etc until you get to the end. Staple at a 45 degree angle to the edge, the attachment will be more durable ( like this | \ \ \ \ \ \ , not - - - - - - -, and not | | | | | | | | | | )

6 - If the end of your fabric on the underside is close to the edge, you will want to put a strip of something to cover the edge so that you don't rub body-parts or clothing against the area where the staples are.

You should now have a beautiful bumper on your bar that should last a good long time.

And, if the padding you use starts to breakdown over time, you can pull the staple from the underside of the bar and add new with only a bit of work.

Yeah, Ms Swanky and I hashed it out this morning more. Didn't know about the tack strip. Makes lots more sense for getting it straight and holding it down. We plan to make the arm rest s seperate piece that can be removed and repaired, maybe.

I think we decided to tile to bar top, which mean maybe doing the top of Hardi Backer or something besides plywood.

Another trip to Lowes. They just never end.

Added more supports across the front and on top.

Attached it tot he wall studs and the pole and to the flooor.

1/4" plywood across the front as just a simplelayer to add onto.

Laid the 3/4" plyswood on top just to get a feel for it.

Had to get back to high school geometry to figure out how to cut this edge to match the angle. Rise over run.


Not ready to screw that piece down, but it's there and looks right.

Rock on!

That is one talented cat.

Swanky was hard at work on the bar yesterday while I was out buying up tons of Halloween decor on sale. 'Came home to see the bar in full scale. Up to this point we've just had measuring tape laid out on the floor as sort of a pattern for the bar - seeing it built up, all 40 inches tall and 10 feet long, really changes the perspective...** this thing is mammoth!**
This room has always been dedicated to be 'the bar' someday but now the bar is the room. Having said that, I'm looking for suggestions too - the bar is now truly the focal point of the room so, it's got to be done well! We have some ideas as to decor on the front of the bar but, the rest we're undecided on. What should we put on the bar top? What do we do with the front and sides? Tile, Bamboo, matting, etc...???? It is so large (bigger than what I've seen in a lot of restaurants) that we may be limited on materials, just due to the cost alone. I had notions about what to do with it before - now that it's real, and huge, I am not sure anymore... Suggestions anyone?

MsSwanky - for the bar top I like how poured resin looks. Real bars use that to create a super-thick clear surface that is hard to damage and ages well. One of the advantages is that you can use A/C plywood (plywood with a quality finish on one side). You stain the wood (done it, it looks great), pour the resin on, and you're done. The Kahiki used it, and a friend of mine has a bunch of their fifty-year-old tables and they still look great! Some pubs I saw in Ireland used resin, or something like it, and they were much older.

I'm a big fan of the poured resin top too---done it m'sef. (You've seen it MS). It's coming together nicely!

Great job on the room!! Its really coming together and looking good!
Stay away from tile if you are not sure about it. Sometimes they make a nice counter but I only recommend it on outside bars or projects. It kind of takes away that cozy, warm and worn in feeling. Also, any single glass or mug dropped, spilt or knocked over will probably break. At least if you have wood you have a little bit better of a chance.

Stick to a nice stained wood, planks or old wood that has character (Like your great old chest!) with alot of coats of finish. Minwax makes a nice Hellsman Marine finish that works good on Bar tops. Even some people like glass tops which enable you to change what you have underneath it. Your bar is probably a bit too big for this one but others may consider it.

The resin finish looks great and is very durable. You can also color the wood underneath any color you like. It will also look much better with the padded arm rest like you wanted. Posted above is one of the best and easiest ways to do it. What a talented bunch on here!! It's really cool to see all the different ideas you get on here.

Keep up the great work!!
TabooDan

[ Edited by: TabooDan 2008-11-03 08:09 ]

Thanks for the detailed bar construction photos & description. I'm just about ready to start on mine & this is a big help!

Hey Tim looking good!!
Do you have one of those woodworkers stores where you live?
You know the ones with all of the funky wood you do not see at Loews.
Go to one of those stores and get a veneer of some rare exotic wood.
The bar top is what people will see a lot of.
You can put a clear coat on that as well.

Thanks. I wanted to put the images and things on here that I myself wanted to see.

We moved the bar top back to a 10 inch overhang instead of 12 and it makes a big difference visually. It'll be better. Also cutting an inch off the back so we have just a one inch overhang in back. That should still keep spills from running down the back. It makes the bar top much smaller.

Skip, I think you are right. We have decided that the padded arm rest is not necesary and will be a big expense (4 yards of material is easily $100) and it'll be fine without it. Just do a more "plain" bar top with a trim edge. Might just stain the top wood, or, as you say, get a veneer.

The mini split heat pump is going in tomorrow. May work on the foot rest tomorrow as well. Will update as we can.

Nice work!

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer 2008-11-16 22:59 ]

Lake, I wish I could see that in person....

So, what's that wood? 2 x 4's that have been torched? Stained? Stained and torched? We need details mon!

And I think we'll be putting in an order for the masks I asked you about.

"That should still keep spills from running down the back. It makes the bar top much smaller"

Tim you need to build that trough in the back of the bar top.
That will catch any spills. And hold stuff.
Plus keep things from rolling off of the bar.
Just mount a piece of 6 inch pine under the bar top and frame with
1 x 1 inch pine.
Burn, stain, coat.

On 2008-11-09 08:34, tikiskip wrote:
"That should still keep spills from running down the back. It makes the bar top much smaller"

Tim you need to build that trough in the back of the bar top.
That will catch any spills. And hold stuff.
Plus keep things from rolling off of the bar.
Just mount a piece of 6 inch pine under the bar top and frame with
1 x 1 inch pine.
Burn, stain, coat.

I've thought about that. The bar top is two layers and I can cut the top layer a few inches narrower and leave room for the little rubber thingies they put at the bar back.

Long shot of the room. There's something new.

Cut the first shelf piece out of left over OSB. Love "free" stuff.

Put up a piece on the end of the bar.

And had this installed. What's this? A mini slit. In essence, it's a single room HVAC unit. Heat and air. Keeps us from having to add to our house HVAC and hope it can handle it. Some nice bells and whistles like a timer so we can get the room to the right temperature a half hour before we get off work. A LOT quieter than a window unit. We just have to figure out how to make it "dissapear."

The whole room is coming together real nice, good work! Love the levels!
Congrats on bringing your dream to realization!

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer 2008-11-16 22:59 ]

Started putting the bottom shelf in. Each piece is cut to fit. Started painting the stuff under and behind the bar. Used a tip from Howland. Watched Lowes paint section for the rejects. Got a color that worked for the room in spaces not seen much and in flat for $5 a gallon. Brad has taken a couple of colors and put them together. You end up with a dark neutral color. Much nicer to paint with a $5 gallon than a $25 gallon.

Just painting what shows. More shelves to go to cover some places.

Cut the second piece for the bar top. Cut 3 inches off the back to shorten the front overhang to 10 inches and the back to 1.

Screwed this layer down to the bar frame. More in the back side than the front. As people lean on the front, the back is where the force will be. The next layer of 3/4 inch plywood will go over this and be attched by screwing up from below.

I also screwed the display shelf to the brackets and put the Guanko in it's cubby hole.

We think we picked out a cheap but decent looking bar top material. We'll see.

Lookin' good, Swanky! Keep the pics coming!

No real progress over the winter monthe, but poised to get in high gear as soon as we get warm weather again.

Decided against building a standard box foot rest and instead we'll use 5 inch bamboo.

Put some of the collection together on the shelf to start thinking about how to make a good display.

And needing to do some repair. The pipe in this wall that goes out to the hose has a cutoff here under the bar. It froze in the 7 degree waether and I had to rip into the wall and still need to repair the leak. Wasn't too bad thankfully. Was afraid the whole floor would have to come out! Yikes.

Hmmm...looks like it's time for an update. Yep.

On 2009-05-01 22:59, Mr. Pupu Pants wrote:
Hmmm...looks like it's time for an update. Yep.

Yep. That's it. About $400 for a new door. We had a leak that was flooding under the wall, under the flooring. We came to the conclusion that the door was the problem, or rather, the framing of the door. So, we got a new solid wood door, cut it down some so we could raise the threshold, put in a better threshold seal. So far, so good. No water in there, but, we have not really tested it, just let it rain on it. Other concrete sealing and wall sealing was done. If we can aim the hose at it on high for a long while and it stays dry, we can then put the floor back down in there and the baseboards and all and get back to work.

Of course, that's after the wedding and the honeymoon. Probably in late June, early July. May clean up and have a little bachelor party in there when BK and Pablus are in town in a couple of weeks.

Wow, I'm really sorry to hear that. Well, 'real life' has to barge in every once in a while :)
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Are you going someplace warm and tropical for your honeymoon?

The Tiki bar will still be there waiting when you come back, anyway. You know.....gnawing at the back of your mind........saying...Haaaave you checked underrrrr the floooooor?....and....Buuuuiiiiillllldd mmeeeeeeeeeeeee.

July 3rd: Adding a thatch "hut" over the bar area.
Tiki 65 came over and we whipped this into shape in a few hours.

I had a 9 foot thatch umbrella cover and a 6 foot area to cover. Had a bunch of stained bamboo poles we got at Pier 1 cheap.

Started by cutting 1/4 of the thatch umbrella and attaching it to the 2 poles to make 90 degrees. Then took the remaining 3/4 of the thatch and added if overlapping the first piece. It is near invisible where they meet. Tied it to the poles and the thatch together with jute.

Took 3 more poles and tied them together for the inner ribs.

Chris attached the hub of the umbrella to a hook in the corner with wires run through the poles.

Each end of the pole is connected to the ceiling by way of black galvanized wire and eye hooks. We put the holes a bit back from the end to make them more hidden.

We attached the central poles to the corner hub and then began wiring them up to get the structure.

Very floppy looking.

Once cross supports are added inside, it looks more right. Still needs trimmed and "finished. May overlap extar thatch on the end to make it thicker where it hangs off.

Here is the underside. Those pieces of bamboo will be replaced with more of the stained and everything cut to fit and tied in place with jute. But there is still more to do above the thatch to wire in lamps, etc. so we are waiting.

Just a few hours to kill on a vacation night. Making some progress. Hope to have to all open in September for a party.

July 19th, 2008

Did some finishing under the thatch. Where I had painted the ceiling black had to be painted back to match the wall.

The new white door had to be fixed. Painted the inner edges the burnt orange from the walls.

Painted the brown around the edges and cut and glued some fijian tapa cloth on the high areas. Had a very whacky 70's vibe at this point.

Added this tiki and it worked well. Took away that weird 70's vibe.

Ms. Swanky found a bunch of this fabric on Ebay and covered all the stools and we put it up as curtains over the back window in the Tapa Room.

The door transformation really came out nice. Great work..its coming along awesome.

Looking good, love the tapa door panals, nice tough. The whole project is coming together!

Amy

I really like the door treatment. The bar stools are cool too. The room is coming together with a nice vibe.

July 25, 2009
More help from Tiki 65 Saturday. We had to rehang the thatch over the bar. The support hook was not to our satisfaction and a few other tweaks. That was done. The big job was the bar top install.

We chose to cover the bar in hardwood flooring. 6' X 7.5" pieces.

With each end of the bar angled to match the wall and the support beam, it required a lot of custom cuts. We glued them down, and ran screws up from underneath to hold it in place to the 3/4 plywood.

11 foot bar, that's near 3 feet deep, meant a lot of looking at flooring. We found what we wanted, and it turned out that one box would cover the whole bar. That was a very lucky break on this special order. We could not have bought another piece. Sahara is the color and it is very close to the look of the bar and tables at the Mai Kai. Ours has square pegs in it.

I also reworked the foot rest. Picked to good straight pieces of 5 inch bamboo and cut them to match. We'll do a little decoraing on them and screw them in when we do the bar front later.

The bar moulding is cut and ready to go. Maybe stain it today. Looking to start the back bar now and tile it and install the sink, etc.

Your key to Beachbum Berry's books. Login and start concocting!

[ Edited by: Swanky 2009-07-26 07:12 ]

Love how you made the door look! Awesome job!
Can't wait to see it all come together.

Great choice for the bar top, it looks fantastic. Love those pegs. Looking forward to continued progress!

I like the bar, the wood has a nice look to it with the square pegs.

**August 8th, 2009 **
You know, you post these pictures and it seems like a snap. Each of these is hours of work and hours of planning...

Tiki 65 reworked all the 2x4 supports on the bar. Made things cleaner, better, stronger. Added 2 shelves.

Put the stained trim around the bar front.

Ms. Swanky started painting the shelves.

Finished painting the shelves and added stained trim to the back side of the bar. Also reworked the bar bar 2x4s.

Installed the surround sound speakers and ran cable to the bar.

Put up a little decor. This was a real pain to hang.

Enjoyed the first Mai Tai in the bar...

Nice job - the square pegs really do seal the deal.

August 22nd, 2009

Fixed the bamboo footrests. Attached a sort of footer on them so they are a bit off the ground and stable. Really difficult to line things up.

Built the liquor shelves. 4" deep shelves. 4' wide.

And a shelf for the surround sound DVD player.

Painted them.

Hid the speaker wires under split bamboo.

Laid the slate tiles out to see how they fit.

Laid and grouted.

Sink installed. Backsplash in and it all matches the PNG stuff well. Put a piece of 1/4 bamboo in the corner to hide wires to the lamp over the bar.

Installed the stained trim.

Your key to Beachbum Berry's books. Login and start concocting!

[ Edited by: Swanky 2009-08-22 17:48 ]

[ Edited by: Swanky 2009-08-22 17:54 ]

Great stuff swanky. It's interesting to see your progress as you're doing some very similar things to what I'm doing...

Like I said, it's looking great so far.

Nice work Swanky...I have been watching the progress on your project for awhile.

August 23rd
Really a lot going on in the bar now, but not everything warrants a picture. Decor on the walls, etc. Everything is a lot of tweaking and decision making.

Tiki 65 covered the mini split in vinyl to hide it. Yeah!

Thanks Bob & Leroy for our custom order rail post! He also did lots to make the OA rail post ready to install. Just so you know how this was done for your reference: The rail post has a bolt in it and we drilled into the floor and used what is basically a large (3 inch) washer and lock nut to tighten it to the floor. The bamboo cross posts are attached by having specially carved plugs on the rail post and the beam that are exactly the size to fit inside the bamboo. We bolted these plugs to the beam and rail post and slid the bamboo on and screwed the bamboo to the plugs. Also cut the bamboo to form fit the rail. It's a near invisible rail support.

Ms Swanky wired the ceramic tiles to the rails.

Close up of the wiring for the tiles. In the background are some experimental colors for the bar front... Stay tuned...

Here are all 4 tiles in place before the rope wrapping. Oh, and the kapu thing, the 32 inch flat panel TV. The horror! I used to be in the no TV camp. I later realized, we spent in the neighborhood of $10-15k on this tiki bar. We are looking for more reasons to be in here. When it's Tiki time, either no TV, or slideshows of vintage Tiki scenes. When it's SEC football season, we're in the bar shouting at our boys.

Hung the cargo net stuff.

Lots of flash here to show details. When we get done, there will be lots of appropriate lighting shots. Really down to details. Decor. Painting. Touch-up. Should be shaking and serving for Labor Day!

WOWZA!!!!!

wow! You can really be proud of all the hard work you have put into this Swanky! Looks great. I love the step by step photos.

Really nice work, Tim!

Well thought out and executed.

No worries on the TV, sometimes I wish I had one in the bar to watch surf videos and such... like you said, making more use of the room besides just drinking and entertaining.

Gonna put some money aside so I can get something small in there and do just that.

Love the sink too with the tile treatment! A sink is the other item I wish I had.

Your overall handling is much like the direction the last 2 Trader Vic's went with (Chicago and L.A.)

Classic tiki with a modern touch.

Enjoy your opening, you deserve it!

Lots of pics to post, but no time! It has rteally taken shape in the last week or so. Got your pieces up on the bar last night Lake. Now we also have to clean the house and get the yard ready, so, probably no pics until Monday...

I am pretty amazed myself and that says a lot. It is more than it's parts.

Looks great!

Love the Chinese tiles :D

Here is a new addition to the hideaway.

Her name be Becky

Heres how she came to be

Closeup of upper torso

Gold leafed the mount

Full body shot

Last but not least

For more of this rebuild go to this link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiki65/sets/72157622083749009/

Swanky we've had some great fun. Congrats on the bar. It looks Great.
Can wait to enjoy some more good times and strong drinks

Aloha

Tiki 65

PS Thanks for not taking any more butt shots of me :)

My bodys in the south but my mind is in the South Pacific............ALOHA

[ Edited by: tiki 65 2009-09-01 18:45 ]

Collection display shelf getting near done.

Mai Kai section.

Moved in the real bar stuff!

Looking down the 11 foot bar. Near ready.

Used a drop cloth and tea-stained it for the front, with matts behind the masks. The black luan wll be replaced with carved trim and we still need to add the lights behind the masks.

Then we have volcano bowls with friends! Had about 25 people over this weekend.

Awright, Swanky! Killer room!