Apartment Bar...New shell lamp

Very nice! I can't believe you are doing this in an apartment. It's going to suck the day you day you decide to move, but in the meantime it is awesome!!! Nice head and ink too!

Nice all around! and great idea on that A frame - I have a vaulted ceiling above my bar as well, and I couldn't figure out how to make one. That will work perfect for me!

Great stuff you've got going in your pad. The sconces look great. My clam shell sconce is so thick that you cant see the light through it, just coming out from around it--very cool! Is that a real tatt you gave yourself? And why all the 'goosebumps'? Very vintage--I think it 's awesome!

http://www.myspace.com/bhowland

The Curse of Howland Island

[ Edited by: Howland 2008-03-31 20:14 ]

Please come to my (BORING!)apartment and tikify it! The A-frame is a perfect touch.

..you're landlord is going to kill you...

Now you gotta do something with the ceiling above the A-frame....

I dig the striping on that mug!

Brilliant idea on the A-frame...it looks great. Maybe you can turn your whole apartment complex tiki. :D

I'm glad to see everyone likes the entrance...I was afraid it wouldn't turn out.

Howland- The sconce you've got is awesome. It's like the sconce that's in every scene in Blue Hawaii! I just couldn't afford a shell that large (and honestly had nowhere to put it.)

Kiki-see the man below this; word is, he's made some tiki rooms in his day!

Ben-If I venture into the realm of the living room, I'll have to change my whole DeadAnimalHead-theme I've got going. But mainly, I can't afford that much thatch.

Sam-Thanks man! That striping should look familiar, I took off on a design I had seen on a mug that you striped! So i guess...keep up the good work!

Vampiress-Between the 17 noise complaints I got for my car, and the constant sawing, drilling, nailing, splitting and firing I've been doing on my patio at all hours of the day (and night), I think my neighbors would like it if I just kept the tiki to myself!

[ Edited by: kahalakruzer 2008-06-14 22:46 ]

Well it's been a while (much too long) since I've done any updating to my bar, but my new idea is a small fountain, like 2.5' tall, in the style of, say Sam's Seafood lava rock/clamshell fountain. Obviously since it's indoors, I want it to be more of a chickenwire and resin project, as opposed to a concrete and boulder project. I've looked around, but all I've seen is more outdoor type fountains, with the more river rock effect. I'm kind of stumped on how to go about the forming of a tiered waterfall structure, so if anyone has done it/seen it done/knows which materials to use, I'd be much obliged!
thanks

ps. I just had a revelation...spray foam for the whole structure (besides the basin)? would it be strong enough to hold, say 2 10" clamshells and have the water dropping over everything? If so, would it need sealer? so many questions, so little time...and space.

DUDE, don't mess around with making an indoor waterfall. Go to OSH or your local hardware store and buy a faux rock waterfall. If it leaks it's on them. You can place a few silk plants with a couple real ones around it and your set. Maybe a 300gph pump and your good to go.

Great bar Kahalakruzer,
You got the bug, big time.

Wow, you really tikified that room! That's incredible! Are you for hire?

Yeah, go look at the big box stores and see what they have and build from there. You can get a reasonably sized catch basin to start and pump, etc. and make your own. You'll need to find the right clamshell that is made of a non-porous material. I've seen some good ones in ceramic at Home Goods lately and other craft stores like Michael's and Jo Ann's.

Great room ....nice nightime vibe. You might contact tikItOny about the foam thing as I believe he did a volcano with it a while back.....I did a large shell sconce with an old foam shell, but not much light through it as it is pretty thick.

I've used styrofoam and cement for outdoor fountians, you can make it look like rock or coral flicking the foam with acetone very little, I use a hopper gun to spray the cement on, for indoors I'd get a fountian and dismantle it for the tray and pump, then build around it, you could stick the clamshells in the cement while it's still wet. I've never seen Sam's Seafood lava rock/clamshell fountain sounds cool.

Kahalakruzer, I love your space. Very inspirational.

My first fez - got it a couple of weeks ago.

Nice bar in that apartment. I am always in awe of all the fine work found here on Tiki Central. Toshi, I would like to see a step by step process of your waterfall. That would be a great new subject line. Keep up the good work guys.

Well this is the outdoor vers - but it may help with some thoughts:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=19826&forum=18&start=15&hilite=waterfall
if you are doing indoor I recommend keeping some kind of Waterproofing (could be a clear trash bag opened up) under whatever you build and just take it slow - let it run and check the areas underneath all the time. The splashs really build up over time so a long drop of water "fall" can create a large splash - on the floor. So less splash the better! - Think trickles and soothing

Thanks to all for the advice...
I'm going up to the OC swap meet tomorrow to see if there is any resin-type fountain that would be a small enough foundation for me to build upon. I've been to 6 places now to find ones like they have at lowes and home depot (their's were too big) made from resin, but had no luck. they have all the pumps and everything, and I even found a faux-stone basin to have as my starting point.Either way, I'm definitely going to be modifying my fountain to my liking. Hopefully there will be some rad waterfall pics soon!

Well, after my searching every nursery and fountain/garden store in my local area, and going to the swapmeet in my not so local area, I ended up finding a fountain within stones throw of my house. I was on a bike ride across the creek from my apartment, and decided to make a last ditch effort to find a fountain by going to my local Stats. I try not to go into Stats very often, because it is the lamest place around and it reminds me of hell, but on a walkthrough, I literally almost stumbled over the fountain that would end up in my bar. Here are the results.
(Don't know wtf happened to the pictures. Wrong light setting I think. Sorry)




and here's the lamp I made a while back

with bamboo curtains

and lastly, my entrance with the flickering tiki torches I made (done for under $10, and they look awesome, I'd highly recommend making. $2 torch,$4 premade candelabra fixture,$3 flicker bulb. cut the bottom of can out with can opener,unscrew top where wick comes out, run wiring through the pole and you're set!)

hope you like it!

Hellz yeah!!!! Hellz yeah!!!

The waterfall fits perfectly with the theme.
I gotta get over to Stats.

I am in envy...AWESOME work bro!!!

Well my friends, the weekend is here, and I've got some spare time on my hands, so I'm planning on building an aquarium set up. No, there is no room as of right now for a 20 gallon aquarium, but after pushing of bars here and tables there...we shall see. I got an aquarium for free so I plan on building the stand (framing it at least) this weekend, and tikifying it if I can come across some thatch and bamboo by sunday. I'm hoping it will fit along the mirrored wall next to the bar, under the large puffer (the area is dead and has been bugging me for awhile now.) I'll hopefully have some pictures, that actually look decent this time, in the next few days. Wish me luck.

I finally finished building my custom aquarium stand, and now I'm too broke to fill it with fish! I like how it turned out though, the shelves have a beachcombed driftwood look to them from the glued planks splitting during torching. Fun stuff.




Soon enough, I may even have fish.

Eeeeeeeeepic waterfall, the lighting makes it very exotic and lava-esque. Lucky find, WTF is this Stats?

You've got a zillion creative ideas here, all very well executed. The faux A-frame is my favorite.

With a bigger space you could really go nuts, but great use of a small one.

Stats is a craft-ish, patio-ish, party-ish, fake plant-ish store. Not too exciting,(and pretty over-priced) but they do have a decent tacky-tiki luau supplies display going on right now.

WOW! Just discovered this thread! From one Hot Rod, Kustom, Rat Fink & Elvis lovin', Rockabilly Tiki fan to another: GREAT JOB! I've still got my white walls & white dropped ceiling, but not for long. I finally got the ceiling-living squirrels out, ( I won't go into gory details but i needed gloves, a mask & mucho deodorizer), & painting & bar construction should begin next week!!! I'll keep everyone posted with regular progress reports.
Again, WOW! You absolutely nailed every project you attempted! What an inspiration!

I haven't had enough time/money lately to get my saltwater tank going, but I did have some leftover bamboo matting from my stand to re-cover the front of the bar.


and I found a little family of tiki farm mugs at the thrift store today.


until next time...

I found this one on craigslist. I may rearrange some things on the wall after this beast. It's about 2 feet.

Nice find!

Your place looks so nice, very inviting and tiki...

Wow Kahalakruzer! Amazing job! My favorite parts are the A-frame (with tiki torches) and the shell sconces, but everything you've done is incredible!

Glad you all like the room! I'm looking at light setups for the aquarium now that I'm back from Sacramento, maybe someday I'll actually finish this thing.

Man, I missed some updates. I like what you did with the bar and good score on the shell!! It will never be done!!

Well I finally got my tank up and running...just need to pick up my filter and fish, but the rest is going good. I took some decent pictures of the whole bar, just as an update for the things I never mentioned on here. I'm thinking about building a thatched roof type covering for the aquarium. I'll post some pictures when the fish arrive.

Dude! Where'd ya go!

whoa! I did kinda disappear! Maybe I've been trying to get back to my primitive roots and all by avoiding the internet...or maybe it's cause my computer broke down. Either way, I've got my aquarium going with a dogface puffer, a tomato clown and a little eel. My first round of fish got taken out by ich, and I had to try multiple treatments to get rid of it. Copper is the only thing that ended up working, but it kills all live rock and invertebrates. bummer. Hopefully I'll get some pics posted of my little friends and some new little additions I've made for anyone interested.

Nice to have ya back!

... an amazing thread. Great work.

Here's a foam skull I painted with some acrylic paints to look kinda headhunted. It was like 5 bucks at a halloween place and I added some frayed twine for effect and shoved some bamboo in the base. Pretty cool


also the lightswitch and turtleshell made into a lamp for fun.


Here's the fish in the aquarium. I had a few more fish when it was first set up, but there were 2 ich outbreaks, and now these two are the only ones strong enough to survive more than a few weeks.


The Dogface Puffer...he kinda looks like a little turd, but he was my dream fish for some odd reason.

The eel

Buddies!

Nice!

I wouldn't have expected the turtle shell to shine through around the edges like that - pretty koo...

Good luck with the ich.

Trad'r Bill

It's all good! The skull is a interesting addition.

FYI, don't bring the local game warden over for a Mai Tai - if the turtle shell is from a sea turtle, they are probably an endangered species and that would make the shell illegal to own. :o

Yea the inside of the shell has a rib like structure that was kind of a surprise to me too. And about the legality, there was already a few discussions when I bought it a while back in collecting tiki, but for as cheap as I bought it, I don't think many collectors would have passed up on it,(and I try to stay away from the game wardens anyway!)

Well here's a cool project that was clearly inspired by my trip to disneyland. I had to go to the enchanted tiki room twice to take notes...The biggest problem was getting the small pieces of rattan straight(the only ones i found were curly.) The torch worked wonders as usual. I do need to find a new spot for the perch in the bar though.



I think I'll make another(i've still got extra rattan and another bird), and add more dangly details to this one.
enjoy

That turned out great! Definitely looks like something you'd see in the real Enchanted Tiki Room.
Here's another idea for making those 'bird hangers' (for variety)...
I bought several types of hanging flower baskets and am playing around with turning them upside down and sticking chinese hats on them. Would still need to add shells, feathers, flowers, bamboo and/or other cool stuff (especially a better bird!).
Where did you find your bird? That one looks great.

I also plan to wire them up with an attached spotlight (inside a piece of bamboo) like the ones in ETR.

ETR sample:

Mr. Pupu pants,I got the birds for free from my work (they were used in a window display) but if my memory serves me correctly, Oceanic Arts has some just like mine. I like your idea with the lights in front of the bird. I was thinking about that before, but I would probably have to use something with a battery. Also, I just bought a hat like the one on your perch, but I turned mine into a hanging sconce-type thing on my ceiling. I suppose those hats are just great multi taskers.