"The Rumpus Room" Kirbys home bar

Aloha and welcome to "The Rumpus Room" well the progrees pics at least.. . a lil back story first... some of you may or may not know the polly recently my fiance inherited her grandmothers home after her unfortunate death last year.. gramdma lived in the home for around sixty years and the house is around the 62.We had to do alot of work to the house before we moved in becouse it was in disrepair.After about 2 months of work we decided to move in, and I immediately started thinking about fixin up the lil room behind the garage that grandma used as a laundry room and the whole family always called the rumpus room, into my very own tiki bar...It realy started by me just throwing all my tiki crap in the room but it never realy had the right feel ... it needed a propper balls out tiki make over...So after talking my new buddys "TikiG" and "TikiMango" at the Tonga Hut, they sayed they would love to help me tiki it up. Accualy alot of the ideas and work on the rumpus room has been a collaborative effort by all three of us and I would not have been able to do it without them so thanks.I dont even have any pics of the progress becouse they took them all so thanks for that too...anyways here we go...

[ Edited by: kirby 2009-01-28 08:22 ]

[ Edited by: kirby 2010-02-25 23:05 ]

[ Edited by: kirby 2010-02-25 23:06 ]

Wow Kirby... you shouldn't type after drinking three Red Mai Tais (a Rumpus Room specialty). I'll try not to lead everyone on for too long, so here are a few pictures of the early days. We started work right after Thanksgiving, November 30th.

While it is very true that Kirby spoke with me and TikiG at The Tonga Hut, we wouldn't help him until he cut us a check that we could cash at BevMo! to replenish our home bar. Thanks again Kirby.

After the check cleared, we headed over to move out all the tiki mementos to make space in the Rumpus Room for some serious work.

We ripped out the 70s orange and brown shag rug so we had a clean slate. Though I think I will miss the mint green walls.

We decided to work "top-down", figuring that was probably the safest thing to do, especially when dealing with black paint.

The white acoustic ceiling tiles took two coats of ultra black paint. Kirby decided on a satin finish.

Once that dried, it was time to measure and hang the lauhala matting.

Hanging lauhala matting was not as easy for us as it apparently is for Bamboo Ben. One wall was plaster, requiring us to pre-drill holes for anchors and screws, as the staples, nails and duct tape we tried to use just wasn't working. After one horizontal run, we had to take a break.

On the normal drywall surfaces, we dabbled with spray-on contact adhesive (didn't have rubber contact cement). In the end we ended up just using a "heap big pile" of staples to deal with the matting.

I'll need to resize and crop a few more photos before I can post more on the progress of the bamboo after the matting was hung.

Pupule Tiki!

[ Edited by: TikiMango 2009-01-27 20:52 ]

Right on Kirby & Polly! when am I coming over :D

Right on Kirby!
Mango and G involved?
rad!
You're in good hands!
Waaaaay stoked at your motivation!
the Rongo Rumpus Room is gonna be STELLAR!
:)

Kirby & T'Mango -

Thanks for posting the above pics on TC.

Just wanted to say Thank You to Kirby for the invitation to help build-up the rumpus room in the first place...I mean, what better way to spend a handful of lazy Sundays than to be around two extremely artistic and creative friends and build a tiki temple?

Can't beat Kirby's space to work with, so I'm pretty stoked on how nice the project has come along so far. I didn't make it to the last build session but I've heard thru the grapevine that the line of battle has crossed from inside to outside...more details to follow from Kirby and/or TikiMango I'm sure.

Thanks Kirby (for the op) and TikiMango - for the great times we shared so far.

Cheers!- the great times to come.

Hope to meet TC'rs at Kirby's Rumpus Room some evening soon to share a few Mai Tais and listen to jungle bongo and 60s surf LPs.

TikiG

[ Edited by: TikiG 2009-01-28 09:52 ]

So a little more technical details. The ceiling in the Rumpus Room is 8ft high, with 4 steps going down into it. This gives it a nice womb-like potential. The back door to the Rumpus Room leads out onto the backyard lanai. I can't stress enough that with the plaster wall, it was very difficult to attach anything without a lot of extra work.

For the majority of bamboo, Kirby took apart a bamboo fence that was wired together. We had to try to sort the bamboo from the fence as the quality was variable. He also bought a dozen bamboo planks with nice finished edges, a few half-rounds and other bits at Oceanic Arts.

After we had our prime pieces selected, it was time to do some "aging" with a blow torch on the bamboo knuckles. This process can go very quickly with a good torch, and very slowly with a bad one. You have been warned.

I think here Kirby is toasting a muffin or something. After everything was aged, we cut a pile of 48" bamboo pieces to run along the bottom of the walls, since the lauhala matting was the upper half. The plan was to use a hefty (4"?) half-round as the divider between the lauhala matting and bamboo.

Again, the plastered wall was a pain! We didn't want to drill holes into the wall to attach each separate piece of bamboo, so we made a "frame" top and bottom, and slid the bamboo parts into place. We then stapled the bamboo pieces to the frame. Here you can see that this still took a long time to do, Kirby kept falling asleep.

Here's the finished results! the flash sort of washes everything out.

For a slight change in texture and to add some visual stimulus, we covered 4 closet doors with a reed matting (unsure of actual name), then framed these in with bamboo that we ripped to 5/8" wide. The end result is really great.

Making great progress, we deserved to move a few pieces of art back into the room and take a well deserved break.

Looks great. Nice touch aging the bamboo. I may have to try that when we do our walls.

After we got all the matting and bamboo up, it was time to start thinking about other aspects of the bar. Kirby wanted a mirrored shelf behind the bar to serve as both storage and display of bottles of rum and mugs.

Kirby laying out a design for his bar shelf.

TikiG cutting some pieces for the bar.

Saw dust flying as Kirby cuts bigger parts for the bar shelf.

This is what Kirby sketched, moai heads to act as the sides for the bar shelf.

With a little effort we managed to get the bar shelf constructed. This is the rough version, it has been sanded and painted.

With the bar shelf done, Kirby thinks hard what else can be done. We had one wall that was concrete block. It didn't have matting or bamboo, and needed something.

What in the world could Kirby be painting?

In the home stretch now, just little touch-up painting here and there. This was the door to the bathroom, painted black with brown faux wood grain.

There is enough completed to start moving in some of the larger places. Welcome home.

More art and mugs get hung on the walls.

Ohh... ambiance! Amazing what a little netting and red lights can do.

Here's the next set of photos, and probably the last for a while.

So I would think The Rumpus Room is about 95% complete, but is a tiki space ever really finished? There is some small bamboo trim that still needs to go around the top of the bar.

The sitting area looks great. The time will come when the cushions get recovered to contrast better. For now I think they match pretty well.

The wooden moose over the bathroom is Ralph. He's a long standing resident of the original The Rumpus Room before it had its make-over, and it was only fitting to make a space for him to call home again.

Cocoa Nut Monkeys caught in the net.

It wouldn't be a Kirby space without a little of that Kirby magic. The volcano looks really great in person. There are black-light active colors in it that really "pop" the artwork. It is actually more subtle when the lighting is at night.

Mood lighting in place.

Tikiyaki (Jim) test driving The Rumpus Room, slinging his Trader Vic's Mai Tai.

There is more on tap for The Rumpus Room, mostly dealing with the outside grounds. A-frame structure, Lava rock fountain, bridge over a lagoon? Who knows, but if Kirby can pull-off an erupting volcano inside, anything is possible outside. You'll just have to wait like the rest of us. I had a blast helping Kirby, and it was great to collaborate different ideas with everyone involved. If you are lucky enough to live within visiting distance, you should really check it out. As Kirby keeps telling me, "The Rumpus Room is always open."

If you have the space and energy to create your own tiki bar, I highly suggest you grab some friends and get to it.

Wow seems like this all went up overnight! Great space! You all did an awesome job and love that volcano mural.

Verrry nice guys!

thanks for posting those pics mango, and thanks again for all the help ..I took a few night shots that im stiil weeding through so i will post those as soon as possible...and as mango said the rumpus room is always open so if any a wandering tiki travaler is in the lacrescenta ca area, shoot me a pm and stop on by for a mai tai..or a carve mahalo...kirby

Kick-ass build out guys... and the results look wonderful!

Enjoy your new tiki lounge, Kirby... and I look forward to seeing the outside extensions!

Hey guys, cool space! It was nice checking on your progress so thanks for the pic's! That volcano, although simple in design, came out really cool and probably looks great with the lighting!
Nice job!!

Mahalo, TabooDan

Sweet Dude's!! Good Yob!! I hope to take it all in very soon!!

Looks great! I wish my bar had a bathroom attached! And I totally agree that everyone should get out and build their own bar...

RUM-PUS !!!!!!

Wow! Very nice. I wanna get in there and tip a couple back sometime.
Really outstanding. EVERYONE should build a home bar!

f'ing a, kirby! you guys did an incredible job. your carvings and paintings fill your space to perfection. i'm starting my own project soon. i'll have plenty o' kirby in my room: teethgrabber, googie, da islands, etc. it'll be my first carpentry job of any kind. wish me luck! or better yet, come on up to sactown again.
p.s. ya better get ready for jonesEy and me crashing the rumpus room in aug.

[ Edited by: kingstiedye 2009-04-26 19:27 ]

Killer job Kirby! I love it.

WOW very nice , man kirby ur off the HOOK!!!

GROG go to Kirby' Rumpus Room last night and hang out with some of the regular Tuesday night crowd. Trader Tom make YUMMY YUMMY drinks. GROG like very much. GROG hang out until early morning, about 1:30 am or so, listening to Kirby and others having a gripeumentscussion. Kirby starts by griping about something. It's mostly a gripe, but Kirby starts arguing that things shouldn't be the way they are, but when you try to explain/discuss why it is the way it is, Kirby treats it like an argument. But, the other persons don't really have an opposing view, because they are discussing other people's natures/actions/point of views that Kirby has a problem with. Now, it may not be in THEIR particular nature/action/point of view, but they are explaining that it is in other's. Kirby then continues to argue as if these people are DEFENDING these other people. But, then a point never gets resolved because instead of introducing a new idea to argument, Kirby's gripe kind of evolves to include another similar gripe which then evolves into another gripe. To Kirby. it's a discussion/argument, when in reality it's just an ever evolving gripe that can't really be resolved in an argument/discussion because there is no directly opposing opinion. Thank God there are some yummy delicious booze-filled drinks there to make the gripeumentscussion entertaining, because arguing with Kirby is worse than banging head against wall. It was fun night.

...and I really hope Trader Tom wrote down just how to make those YUMMY drinks!

He wrote down one of them.

hmmmmmm wonder what was being grippedargueddiscussed about?
:wink:

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Oh, it's not just one thing. With Kirby it's kind of a stream-of-conscience gripeumentscussion. Kirby had been drinking since 6pm, so GROG pretty sure the amount of alcohol consumed greatly influenced the amount of meandering in his gripeumentscussion.

glad you had a good time,Ernie!
:)

:D GROG need get out more...KIRBY need hug...rub da RUMPUS! :D

The Rumpus Room is great! Kirby and and his friends did a wonderful job...and it's always got some new elements each time you return. There's always a few new coconut monkeys in serious peril, whether they're being hung up in bamboo cages, singed by exploding volcanoes, or forced to try my drink concoctions that just didn't work out...

The gripeumentscussion is a work in progress too. I've noticed some recurring themes. It kind of ebbs and flows like the exotica music playing in the background...

One of these nights we'll have to stop having fun long enough to take some pictures. I keep forgetting my camera.

Updated photos for us NOT able to attend the regular Tuesday shindigs would be most welcome.

Here's some pictures from the latest Tuesday night at the Rumpus Room. These will have to serve till somebody with some photography skills steps in.

GROG gotta go more often. GROG bring lemons, limes and ice, and GROG leave with some nice artwork Tobunga give GROG and a SHAG shirt Kirby had found at a thrift store. Yay!!

Nice, tasty drinks Trader Tom. Danke.

On 2009-02-02 14:42, Lake Surfer wrote:
Kick-ass build out guys... and the results look wonderful!

Enjoy your new tiki lounge, Kirby... and I look forward to seeing the outside extensions!

I wholeheartedly second everything Lake Surfer wrote!

Plus -- MORE...pics...SOON!

And you can bet I'll take ya up on your generous invite, Kirby, whenever I happen to be in the La Crescenta area! (How long a drive is that from West L.A. anyway???)

Cheers! And have a Grog for ME, Grog! :drink:

I missed ya'all tues.! See you next Tues. for sureunless your going to T.V.?

I missed ya'all tues.! See you next Tues. for sureunless your going to T.V.?

I missed ya'all tues.! See you next Tues. for sureunless your going to T.V.?

I think Tuesday is still a go for the Rumpus Room. I believe that Trader Vic's is having their special night on Thursdays, not Tuesdays as was originally reported. So, no conflict there. Also, I just dug another box of alcohol out of the garage to donate to the cause. I looked over the supplies last time and if someone can pick up ice, pineapple juice, and mint sprigs, we should be ready.

dude tom..your awesome..as long as you continue to donate to the cause..you will stay awesome..jk
and thank everybody for the comments..I just gt a new camera so hopefuly updated pics soon..mahalo

WOW! Awesome Bar, Awesome Drinks and Awesome Folks.

It was a great Tuesday night... Thanks Kirby!

P.S. Your Rumpus Room pendant is proudly hung in the Waikiki Womb.

Another great night at the Rumpus Room. Thanks Kirby for the Members "Rumpus Room Pendant" Awesome! What great Hosts are Kirby & Polly, Thanks a million. Great to meet you Tiki Koi all the way from from Austin Tx. & Carla too & Finally super to meet you Murph good times!

Kirby & Polly are so sweet for having us over every tuesday!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!

and thank ya so much for the members Rumpus Room pendant!
you are just too cool! :D

And it was great meeting some new faces too! :)

Can't wait fer next week!

ALL HAIL THE RUMPUS ROOM !

C U Next Tuesday.

Lookin' sweet!

I've heard i'm missing out on some good times.

wish this wasn't like a million miles away from me.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Im glad you guys enjoy the rumpus room.. polly and I enjoy having you all over every tuesday..
Thought I would post a pic of the official rumpus room tiki pendant, only the cool kids will be wearing these this summer...

Nice work Kirby - see 'ya next Tuesday!

kirby-does owning one of your awesome tikis (mr. bamboo teef) and one of your tres cool paintings qualify us to get on the guest list for the rockin rumpus room? would love to hang with some cool tikifiles and get to meet tikiyaki jim as well. i am a fan of tikiyaki orchestra as well as a composer in burbank so i feel like we have some common interests. plus my wife jen (she's the one who bought mr bamboo teef) would love to come and see you again and check out your tiki pad as well...