The Tiki Room, Waterloo ON

Hi everyone.

I've been a fan of tiki culture for about 10 years now, but really got started collecting in earnest around 4 years ago. Living in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, it is not as easy to come by tiki items, so most of my colllection was gathered via the web.

Last fall, after a trip to Vegas and a visit to Frankie's Tiki Room, I was inspired to put our unused storage room in the basement to use and bulid a bar room. The room had just been gathering dust and holding boxes and junk. Over the course of a few weeks, I bulit The Tiki Room (boring name, but inspired by Frankie's). Here's some shots of the construction progress and its current state. I'm pretty proud of my Tiki Room, and it has been the location of quite a few fun nights since it was bulit.

I'm relatively new to TC, having only posted about a mug sale last year. This is an awesome place - I hope you don't mind me joining the conversation.

(Some of the photos I'll post were from instagram, so please forgive the filtered look they might have.)

The room as it looked before the work began:

A plan for the room built on an ipad app:

The room cleaned out, with the old carpet removed.

I cut a hole in the wall in the corner, and moved my beer fridge in, with the back of it protruding into a hallway. This pic also includes the new carpet.

I added a woven grass mat ceiling by gluing the mat to the existing drop-ceiling tiles, and putting them back in place.

Here's the frame of the bar:

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And with the bar lights installed. I used Philips Hue bulbs in all my lamps, so the lights can change to pretty much any colour (although I find the bulbs don't really do green very well.)

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In this pic, the face of the bar is done, wrapped in a bamboo mat. The bar rail is a large bamboo rail. I masks on the wall were just to pretty-up the in-progress shot.

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Next, I added the thatch awning.

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I installed a beer tap on the bar, with the keg/fridge located right below it.

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Liquor shelves were added to the back wall. I later added a third shelf (you'll see that in later photos). Shelves around the top perimeter of the room were also added to hold my mug collection.

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NICE start! Like how you did pre plan layout of the space. You may want to try some darker contact paper on the white fridge fronts. Keep us updated.

To fill the right corner, I built a fake surfboard out of a pine shelf, stain, and epoxy lacquer.

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Here's the liquor shelves with the third shelf added, and LED lights installed on the tiki mug shelf:

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I added a brass rail to the base of the bar, and a shelf unit to one of the corners to hold my tiki-related material.

Now some "after" shots.

I originally included a dart board with a light shining on it. However, space was a little too tight and we weren't using it, so I replaced it with a lamp with another Hue bulb.

With dart board:

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Dart board removed, light added:

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That is a great transformation. Love what you did with the ceiling.

• Dale

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I later added some shells and starfish to the net:

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I found a Longboard Lager tap on eBay (too bad the beer itself is not available in Canada!):

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I recently picked up a Philips Hue Bloom light for the surfboard:

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My Griderco cast aluminum Moai:

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And the sign above the entrance to The Tiki Room: (sorry, I can't get it to post in the correct orientation for some reason (I've tried rotating it), but you get the ghist):

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The tiki mug shelf:

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And the rum shelf:

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Thanks everyone!
@tikichad on Instagram

You have a very inviting tiki bar, great job. I also liked your progression pictures.

It looks very nice.

Looks awesome!
(already follow you on instagram) :)

Cool. Another Canadian tiki bar! Welcome! And thanks for all the pics.

Looks awesome! I like the surf board.

You must be a good dart shot with no back board!

On 2014-06-19 18:56, jimsflies wrote:
Looks awesome! I like the surf board.

You must be a good dart shot with no back board!

:)

I actually had a surround that magnetically clipped around the board when it came time to use it. The board is gone now - we decided there really wasn't enough room for it.

Really good transformation all round. You did a great job on that fake longboard. I might steal that idea.

[ Edited by: Thurston Howell IV 2014-06-20 16:04 ]

Welcome to TC Chad...you have done a great job. That long board looks like the real deal. I agree, very nice transformation. Keep up the great work and posting pictures. CHEERS

Great build/ transformation. Cool job on the surfboard!

Dig the cut out for the fridge- smart way to save some room. One way to "hide" the fridge would be to add matting to the white front- I did that with a few things in my home bar, easy to install.

Look forward to seeing more!

I, too, enjoyed the stepwise pictorial.

What a great idea for the ceiling! Looks fantastic. The entire room is terrific.