Club Nouméa

Kia ora!

Greetings from Wanganui! This is my first post, so apologies in advance for not doing advanced stuff like adding pics yet (I'll get there...).

Having decided to spruce up the kitchen counter facing out onto my living room/dining room, and living in a house in a bush location with cedarwood panelling and strandboard flooring, a Pacific theme seemed like a natural option. And given I have spent more time in Nouméa than in any other place in the South Pacific (outside New Zealand), a bar based on that city also seemed like a natural choice for a theme, so recently I have been digging out old maps, postcards, coins and photos I took over there and augmenting them with other South Pacific clutter I have found in the antique/junk shops here. It is early days yet, but the clutter is starting to come together.

I have been looking at some of the photos on this forum and can only say I am definitely not worthy. There's an enormous amount of inspirational material here and I am awestruck.

As New Caledonia is officially in Melanesia (although the Loyalty Islands are a crossover point for Polynesian/Melanesian culture), I am curious to know if there is anyone out there with a bar based on a Melanesian theme rather than a Polynesian theme...? Any photos perhaps?

I hope that in the not too distant future I will be able to present "before and after" photos.

Sounds like a cool plan for a bar :D

I had to Google Wanganui...WOW it looks like a beautiful place. I toured through NZ a few years ago and it was the best trip I ever had...hope to get back some day. Just a word of encouragement...there are so many great pictures and helpful people on this board...it is indeed inspiring. Although materials may be hard to find for you, there are a lot of instructions on how to get the look through artsy endeavors. You will be able to build a great Tiki bar. :)

Here is a thread on turning PVC into bamboo. The original picture links are broken. I just sent a message to Paul to see if next time he checks out the board he could replace them. But there are pictures by other folks there...so hope it helps.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=6800&forum=7&start=0

Hello VampiressRN,

Thanks for the PVC-to-bamboo conversion tip, but you are forgetting I actually live in the South Pacific. Consequently I am the proud owner of my very own bamboo thicket and currently have a stack of the real stuff drying on my deck. :) If anyone has any hints and tips on preparing/treating/cutting bamboo, they will be gratefully received.

Sorry for the absence from the forum for a couple of weeks, but I have been busy tikifying my bedroom. I can't see a Tiki Bedroom thread, and have noticed at least one other guy has put bedroom photos in this part of the forum, so that will be my next post.

Best wishes
CN

Prior to the bar project, I thought I would get warmed up by renovating a bedroom first.

Here is what the bedroom looked like "before". Note the sickly pink paint and the truly awful 90s curtains (left behind by the previous inhabitants - I wonder why?)

More to come in next post...

CN

Here are some photos of the bedroom repaint. I used Japanese Laurel by Resene Paints on the walls, and Lava Core by Dulux Paints on the window frames:

Both paints are acrylic, although the Japanese Laurel has an enamel finish.

More to follow

CN

Bedroom renovation continued...

Kaipara Olive curtains by Soft Touch:

I put some patterns on the light switches and wall sockets so they would blend in somewhat:

Then came the wall decorations and furniture...

Authentic plastic Maori masks from the 1960s:

Easter Island and Tahiti pictures:

(The Easter Island pics were a gift from an Easter Islander I met at a conference some years ago...)

One of the two new mats beside the bed (both the same pattern), and door insulation:

Banjo-playing shell frog (note the broken strings - he's a wild man...) - see if you can spot this little guy in the pic that follows this one:

And the pièce de résistance, installed in an ugly window that looks into the garage ( :oops: ): Tropical forest waterfall and pot plants with new bookcase. The window can be backlit at night (2 settings – daylight and dusk).

Here is a night pic of the backlighting:

Next step: the bar project....

CN

[ Edited by: Club Nouméa 2011-01-11 03:01 ]

Nicely done CN!

Sweet looking room. I love what you did with the window facing the garage. Great idea!

Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to see what you do next.

Very neat! I dig those Maori masks.

Thanks for the positive feedback about the bedroom. It was nice to see several hundred hits as the result of people dropping by to have a look.

Work has started on the bar project, although it is still at the stage of assembling materials, so there is not much to show yet.

For the time being, here are a couple of "before" photos of the bar area to give an idea of what I am working with. I am fortunate to have a very functional bar-type structure already in place, so there is no heavy rebuilding work required:

As you can see, the kitchen is enclosed by an L-shaped interior wall. The idea is to turn this entire structure into a tiki-style hut within my house, using tapa cloth and/or matting, and bamboo applied to the top half of the wall, which is currently painted light green. The lower wood panelling already looks pretty good to me, so that is staying, and I will possibly attach some carvings at fixed intervals along it. I would also like a Melanesian totem attached to the uprights at each end of the bar, and these are going to have to be customised to fit the existing structure, so we will see what my carving skills are like. If that fails, I will try painted totems instead. In New Caledonia, traditionally they had these totems on entrances to huts etc. They consist of a rectangular post featuring a geometric pattern most of the way up (squares, criss-crossed lines, diamond-shaped markings), with a benign, smiling or angry face on top of them.

Here is another shot that shows some of the back wall and a better view into the kitchen:

I am going to extend the tiki-style wall cladding along this back wall and around the curtained window you can see in the left foreground. This window is completely redundant. It looks out of the back of my house at an earth bank. All you can see through it is the bank itself, some tree roots and some weeds. That corner of the house receives no sunlight whatsover, so I am boarding over the window and installing a monster-sized enlargement of a photo I once took of the sunset at Anse Vata beach, which is Nouméa's equivalent of Waikiki beach. I received the enlargement some days ago and it looks great. The guy in the photo shop said it was the largest blow-up he had ever done from a 4 x 6-inch photo. And it wasn't digital either (probably just as well, or it would have pixellated like crazy).

So that's where things stand at the moment. I will keep you posted with further developments.

CN

Over 3 weeks have passed since my last post, so it is high time for an update on the tiki bar installation work.

First, the corner the bar is in was cleared away so that the makeover could begin, and I fitted some new curtains (Kaipara Brick Red from Soft Touch):

The whole house has the strandboard flooring you can see in the photo above, so I put in a new floor covering to help physically delineate the bar area/dining table area from the rest of the open-plan living room:

For lighting the dining table, I found a nice loungey-looking lampshade, and a nice zebra-striped lamp for mood lighting for the bar area:

I found this beauty (made in New Zealand) in a local lighting shop and liked it so much I got a smaller matching one for the bedroom. The large one is 1.4 metres high and has a foot switch:

The next step was to deal with the awful pointless rear window that looks out on a dirt bank. To give you an idea of just how much I hate this window, here is what the view looks like on a rainy evening:

And another view:

The idea was to board up this horrible window so it could be put to a better purpose. I used some scrap wood to provide some support for the hardboard that was to be nailed over the top of it:

Then I nailed in the hardboard onto the supports. This was a nerve-wracking operation, because even though I made sure the nails were short enough to avoid hitting the windowframe or glass, there was still the possibility that the hammer impacts might crack the pane. Fortunately they didn't:

Then up went my monster blow-up of a 6 x 4-inch photo of a sunset on Nouméa's Anse Vata beach that I took back in the '90s. The guy in the photo shop recommended some hideously expensive aerosol adhesive designed for photographic paper that looked way too toxic for me to want to be spraying it in the vicinity of my kitchen, so I went and got a very large gluestick instead and that worked fine:

Sadly, in real life, this beautiful view has been ruined in recent years by a tacky pier built in the middle of the bay, and a large new hotel in the middle of the peninsula in the background that is way out of proportion with its environment and whose silhouette resembles a massive concrete blockhouse when the sun sets behind it. That's progress...

Something I immediately noticed once the photo was in position was that there was a problem with glare from the room lighting:

After some initial cursing and swearing, I decided the easiest solution was to do what you do with a normal window when there is too much glare from the sun - install blinds:

To save $$$ and avoid hassles with the blinds getting caught up in the curtains, I bought blinds that were narrower than the overall width of the window:

With the curtains in position though, you don't even notice:

As you can see, I also used a couple of bits of waste plywood and skirting I had lying around, applied some appropriate matching timber stain to them, and nailed them into the bottom of the window frame to fill in where the exposed hardboard was.

But the window was not finished yet. More about that in the next instalment....

CN

To round off the window, I added a window box and some exotic plants:

Then it was time to move on and tackle the bar area. I found some interesting looking upholstery fabric that matched what I was aiming for, so I tacked that to the walls using some brass upholstery tacks with appropriately-patterned heads. For the back wall I used the reverse of the fabric (white background with a brown pattern), and for the bar itself, I used the front of the fabric (brown background with a white pattern).

For the bar frontage, I made some jungle-looking shields to go along the lower wooden panelling, then filled up the top half with clutter, mainly relating to Nouméa:

This shot gives you a better look at the fabric on the bar walls:

The Club Nouméa sign, featuring the coat of arms of the city of Nouméa:

Along with various pictures and posters of Nouméa and New Caledonia, I included a couple of tourist maps, some coins, and also a digital picture frame with various photos I have taken in and around Nouméa over the last twenty years or so:

As it is in a corridor and it would be too easy to knock pictures off their frames, the side wall is less busy picture-wise, with just a couple of my framed photos of Nouméa:

I found two very cool-looking Sepik River carvings from Papua New Guinea, depicting bird spirits, so they book-end the bar:

To round off the back wall where the window with the view of Anse Vata is, I put up a couple of spears and other odds and ends:

So, basically I have the front of the bar sorted out now:

The next step will be to put in shelving and storage behind the bar and (last but not least), stock up on booze....

CN

Great window treatment. It really changes the feel of the room and the picture is perfect!

[ Edited by: Donnabeach 2010-07-03 12:36 ]

Thanks for the positive feedback Polynesiac and Donnabeach. And once again it was gratifying seeing that there were several hundred hits as a result of people dropping by to have a look. I am now planning the next stage, which involves the area behind the bar...

CN

Here are a few more photos of the work in progress. As you can see above and below, the tikification has already spread from the bar area into my general living room area, and looks like being unstoppable....

To start off, here are a couple of better photos of the PNG carvings at each end of the bar:

I am slowly building up the bar clutter with new pieces.

A fernwood carving from Vanuatu (approximately 16 inches tall):

He was fastened to the wall by sitting him on a bracket and drilling a screw into him in a sphincter-clenching location, at the risk of incurring the wrath of the ancestral gods of Ambrym. It was either that or place him in a pot, but I doubt whether the angry gods would have been very happy with the household cat using this fine piece of soft malleable wood as a scratching post either...

A couple of pieces of Hawaiian tapa (kapa), alongside the PNG club/mace/axe thing:

These two small pieces date from the late 19th century and were a birthday present from my companion Ms Nouméa. They form part of a family collection of tapa given to one of her ancestors (who was a member of the Dole clan) by a Hawaiian princess. Some of this collection now resides in a museum in Hawaii.

A bow and arrows from Papua New Guinea:

The arrows are nicely detailed:

I have put them up on the wall on the other side of the lounge from the bar:

This collecting stuff is nice, but I still have to get onto renovating the area behind the bar. As can be seen, some shelves are desperately needed:

CN

Love it.
You are adding some really nice details.

I agree, it is looking great. Your masks are beautiful and the window treatment is fabulous!!!

Thanks for the compliments Murph and VampiressRN. And it's time for another update, by the looks of it...

CN

Here's an update on recent developments:

I got my computer art entitled "Cargo Cult" printed out (1m x 1.5m) and framed:

It is now hanging on the wall opposite the entrance to the bar/kitchen:

The tikification process has now spread to the rest of the lounge with the purchase of various prints.

"Enchantment" (aka "Private Dancer"), by Richie Fahey:

Alongside it is "The Tall Order" by Shag:

And there was no way I could resist Shag's "The Drunken Cleric":

I was wondering what to do with the corridor linking the bar to the bedroom. The bar has a Melanesian theme, while the bedroom has a Polynesian theme. The corridor would have to feature a Pacific theme that fits in, without being one or the other, so I decided to turn it into a surf gallery.

I painted the walls light blue (which didn't show up in these flash photos), and framed some classic images from the 60s:

I was pleased to find an image of this classic NZ surf film poster too - "Children Of The Sun":

Along with images of other US surf film posters:

I had enough light blue paint left over to repaint the bathroom while I was at it (hmm - a nautical theme?)

The area behind the bar still awaits me...

CN

Nice, I think the best part of it all is looking and finding and decorating and getting real passionate about the whole thing. I know I never want it to be over and I am constantly looking and deciding what to change or do next. Best of luck. :)

Yes, I know what you mean hiltiki.

Here is a case in point. I already mentioned the mask below from West Papua in the Tiki Finds thread. After looking at it up on the wall for some weeks, I decided the eyes needed illumination, so I fitted two battery-powered red LEDs behind the eyeholes:

Unfortunately the photo didn't come out very well, but the glowing red eyes look great with the mood lighting on!

CN

Let's try that again - glowing eyes in the dark:

That's better!

The bar top has now been decorated. I purchased some tinted glass and put various pieces of New Caledonian ephemera under it:

The old postcard in the top centre claims to be of New Caledonia, but the carvings in it look suspiciously like they are from the New Hebrides...

And another window installation has been completed. This one is in a window at the bottom of a flight of stairs:

The image is a picture from a 1970s book on New Caledonia and was scanned, enlarged and printed out on gloss photographic paper, backed with semi-rigid clear plastic. This window gets a lot of sunlight, but is opposite some book shelves, so previously the curtains were usually closed to protect the books from fading. With the photographic paper and the transparent plastic in place, the window now still lets in light but no longer fades my books.

As the window is at the bottom of a flight of stairs, the two wooden planks across the window are padded with foam rubber and constitute a safety barrier in the event of someone falling down the stairs. They are substantial enough to stop a light fall, but are light enough to break and give way in the event of a heavy fall. In that event, the newly-installed plastic backing behind the photo is a safety measure too, as it protects the accident victim from shattering glass should he or she fall hard enough to break through the planks.

I nailed in bamboo trim (bamboo from my local bamboo patch) around the edges of the image to stop light getting in, and painted the nail heads brown so they match the bamboo.

CN

Toto, j'ai l'impression que nous ne sommes plus au Kansas !

[ Edited by: Club Nouméa 2010-09-12 02:12 ]

I like the collections you have, especially the authentic crafts! Any new pieces on the horizon for you?

Thanks Wayfarer,

I am about to head into Darkest Taranaki (up the road from Wanganui) as there are a couple of antique shops there I have my eye on.

I am also thinking of going on a carving-gathering expedition in Vanuatu (somewhat further up the road) in months to come and am trying to talk Ms Nouméa into coming with me, but she isn't too keen on the prospect of helping me carry a 6-foot tamtam with a carved head through Customs. I can't see why...

CN

I finally got around to sorting out some shelves for the bottles.

The starting point was this unit, which I found in a storage box store:

Although it is made from bamboo, it needed tikification, so I cut out a couple of hardboard panels and upholstered them:

Then they were attached to the sides using tacks (the bamboo proved to be too hard for nails):

The shelves in situ:

There's more free space behind the bar now that the bottles are out of the way:

The shelves are very stable, so I have not bolted them to the walls, and consequently they can be removed easily if I want to scrub down the bar.

CN

The next stage was to paint the inside wall of the tiki bar. I used Glanmore by British Paints.

The work commences:

I went for a two-tone look in the room, with mid-green behind the bar, and the kitchen area in very light green (although it looks like white in these photos):

I already had these customised, heavy-duty curtains over the kitchen window, so painting the whole room the same colour would have been too imposing:

The paint matches the curtains, which match the tiles, so it all seems to tie in together OK.

The kitchen area is not particularly tiki-style, although the pictures tie it in with the rest of the room:

I'm going to see if I can find some appropriately patterned tiles for that back wall behind the stove though - something in a Pacific style that is also functional (to catch grease and steam).

The bar is now basically finished, although doubtless more clutter will be added over time:

The googly-eyed mask over the drinks shelves is from the poster of the tapa exhibition that was held in Te Papa Museum in Wellington (ended last month). For a while back there, this guy had his image plastered all over Wellington.

Alongside him is an image of the Rocher à la Voile (Sail Rock), which also features in the picture window I created on the other side of the bar (see earlier photos). Back in the days of passenger sailing ships and steamboats, the inhabitants of Nouméa used to ride down to the beach at the point opposite this rock and wave farewell to their loved ones sailing for far-off destinations like Indochina, Tahiti, and France.

Other New Caledonian pictures include one of a roussette (flying fox):

To this day, roussettes are considered to be a delicacy by the Kanaks. I have never had the nerve to try one.

Above the kitchen bench is a picture of Kanak flèches faitières (finials):

These carvings are attached to the central pole of Kanak huts. Their design differs from tribe to tribe and from region to region. The one depicted in the middle is from Hienghène, and bears more than a passing resemblance to the one I have over the bar:

The pictures behind the bar are not all to do with New Caledonia though:

The generic Pacific art on the right was made in Auckland, and the one on the left is by me ("Entering Tiki Cove"):

Then there is the "Moruroa Triptych" over the door (French nuclear test photos compiled by me):

And my matching '70s spice racks have been tikified by association:

Here too there is a mix of my art ("Marquesan Boy & Idol"), postcards of Nouméa and Port Vila...:

... along with "After Gauguin" (by Bobby Holcomb), Miss Tahiti 1962, and Betty Page:

That's one way of reminding me to use my spices...

This brings the baseline work of tikifying the bar area to a close. From here on in, what will be involved is detail work and accumulating clutter.

CN

Toto, j'ai l'impression que nous ne sommes plus au Kansas !

[ Edited by: Club Nouméa 2010-10-05 00:44 ]

Keep up the good work, your place is taking a new life with the new colors. Do you use the spices?

Thanks hiltiki, and yes, I do use the spices, and I even grow my own herbs for cooking.

CN

Love the liquor shelf and the triptych. You've really got a unique look going on!

Thanks for the positive feedback, MauiRose.

CN

I have recently been building up my collection of glassware, mainly thanks to local charity stores.

Miscellaneous glasses:

The first shot glass is a magic one that reveals a scantily-clad lady when filled with fluid...

And etched glassware, all in the same style, that I seem to find all over the place:

I have about half a dozen of each of the glasses in the photos above, so I should be set for a while now.

And, while I am at it, some old favourites:

1960s Japanese electro-chrome metal cups, still in their original holder. I "liberated" these from my parents' home years ago. We used to use them on picnics when I was a kid.

CN

Toto, j'ai l'impression que nous ne sommes plus au Kansas !

[ Edited by: Club Nouméa 2011-01-11 02:36 ]

And, to round off the tour of the glassware etc., here is my not-so-extensive collection of mugs:

Yes, I know there are people on this site who have built extensions to their homes in order to house their mug collections, but 17 mugs is all I've got, and that should do me for now. Incidentally, the two ugly black ones in the front row are reserved for drunk people who I don't trust with my good stuff...

Here are a few more minor odds and ends...

The bar clutter is being built up. I have framed some memorabilia from my 2010 tiki tour of California and Nevada:

More on this trip will be found in the Tiki Travel section (soon...).

And now, behold the wonder that is my plastic puffer fish:

Yes, I can hear you laughing - stop it immediately! A real one was not an option because of the resident cat. This one has the advantage of being unbreakable. If (when) she pulls it down, the most she can do is leave a few teethmarks in it.

I have fitted a couple of tiki door handles in the kitchen:

If they turn out to be resilient enough, I am going to buy more and fit them to all of the kitchen cupboard doors and drawers.

And, to round things off, some Christmas gifts made for me by Ms. Nouméa.

Tiki placemats (2 designs - 2 of each):

And, further evidence that she is the perfect woman, behold the Club Nouméa mug:

Which raises my collection to the impressive number of 18.

More stuff is in the works - wall cladding for behind the stove, and some carved panels, all going well.

CN

The next stage was applying wall cladding behind the stove.

When the house was built, the builders only applied a basic coat of acrylic paint in the kitchen over drywall. Over the intervening years, grease and fat accumulated on the wall behind the stove. As the paint is acrylic, it couldn't be scrubbed hard without rubbing a hole right through it, so the previous owners had left the wall in a mess.

The obvious thing to do was to strip the paint off and recoat. However, there was no protective primer underneath it, so I wasn't keen to see what would happen to the drywall if a solvent was applied. Tiles were too messy and time-consuming, and I couldn't find any with the right pattern, so I opted to cover the wall with Laminex, a Formica clone usually used for benchtops:

As it's designed for use on benchtops, it's easily wipeable. I chose this particular pattern because it looks retro, and vaguely woven:

This was the first time I had used this material, and it turned out to be difficult to cut and handle. Laminex is brittle, and splits and rips easily. I found the best way of cutting it was to use very sharp scissors, combined with a craft knife for the cut-outs. Safety glasses were a necessity, particularly when using the scissors, as Laminex splinters when cut. I used Selley's Liquid Nails adhesive, which worked well, athough Laminex also tends to curl when the glue dries, so I had to sit and watch it for about 30 minutes and tap it back into place if it showed signs of curling.

What looked like a basic wall shape actually turned out to be quite complicated:

Cutting a single piece to cover the wall turned out to be overly optimistic (it cracked), so I split the wall into 3 panels. The central panel was taped up first, so I could work out the dimensions of the other 2 panels:

Then all 3 panels were glued in place:

And the final result:

The next phase involves carving(s).

CN

This big bare beam was my next target:

I thought about various decorative options, including nailing up carved panels, but instead decided to glue up this patterned material:

Front view, looking towards the bar:

The next step is to track down some more carvings - I'm off to Vanuatu!

CN

Here's the haul from Vanuatu. I'll start with the stuff I haven't worked out where to put yet.

The first one was purchased off a collector and is actually from Papua New Guinea:

She acquired it in the early 70s, so it was probably made shortly before that. It is called a "Garra" and is used in a dance performed by the Bahinemo people of the Middle Sepik. The dancer grasps it using the two triangular shaped holes in the middle.

All the rest are from Vanuatu:

The thing in the middle is made from bamboo and is used to knead breadfruit.

This dancing mask is 28 inches tall:

This tamtam reproduction is 24 inches tall:

And this one is 18 inches tall:

Lastly comes a little stone carving which has found a home in my windowbox:

CN

You are an excellent problem solver with an eye for design.

On 2011-02-05 04:07, Club Nouméa wrote:
...I opted to cover the wall with Laminex, a Formica clone usually used for benchtops:

This was the first time I had used this material, and it turned out to be difficult to cut and handle. Laminex is brittle, and splits and rips easily. I found the best way of cutting it was to use very sharp scissors, combined with a craft knife for the cut-outs. Safety glasses were a necessity, particularly when using the scissors, as Laminex splinters when cut. I used Selley's Liquid Nails adhesive, which worked well, athough Laminex also tends to curl when the glue dries, so I had to sit and watch it for about 30 minutes and tap it back into place if it showed signs of curling.

If you use Laminex again try putting tape on the back where you'll be cutting, then cut through the Laminex & the tape so the tape holds the Laminex together & keeps it from splintering.

Thanks for the kind comments Lente, and for the Laminex tip, Mr Freelance.

In a flash of inspiration, I worked out what to do with the remaining carvings last night. The stone carving was looking kind of lonely in the window box, so I decided to give him some company:

CN

Nice work my friend!

Pals,
Suicide Tiki

Whoops - Hello Suicide Tiki! I completely missed your comment - thanks for dropping by! (I should too, more often...)

CN

Cool stuff! Super digging the plastic puffer!

It has taken me a while to get around to it, but I have finally put up some fairy lights and a tinted lightbulb above the bar:

Love the dim lights, your place is looking real nice.

This is cool. Love that window mural idea. Reminds me of Trader Sams at Disneyland. Great Work. :)

Thanks forgotten tikiman!

Tikification is continuing, with further inroads being made into the kitchen

The "before" photos:

Good riddance to those bland, unadorned walls:

In addition to hanging up a PNG gope board, I needed to remove the curtains to do the fiddly bits:

And the old white plastic lampshade over the sink had to go. Fortunately I found this on a recent expedition to Wellington:

In addition to which I finally found some flax matting for doing the ceiling:

In the not-too-distant future, I will no longer have to look at my horrible white ceilings...

Sorry for the delay, but I have been absent due to ill health. The good news is that the roof of the kitchen is nearly done and I will have a bunch of photos to show you fairly soon.