Ki'o wai Lounge (bar construction page 3)

Looking good. The bamboo turned out well.

I like it.

• Dale

I guess the nodes are darker than real bamboo even after burning...hopefully it will look okay under the front of the bar once its in place.

/quote]

I like I also, it looks good on the front of the bar.

thanks guys. I made another batch last weekend and made some improvements to my technique. I'm moving the first batch to the side of the bar and going with these on the front.

Jim

Your bar is really coming along. I usually don't care for the look of burning the bamboo but the way you made a pattern out of it makes it look great! Keep up the good work,

@MaukaHale thanks!

So here is an update...got all the "bamboo" on the sides. Making the bamboo was a slow process. In total, I think I did twelve 10-foot sections...120 feet.

This weekend in between other projects I plan to start trimming around the bamboo and working on the backbar. I picked up a beverage cooler for behind the bar on craigslist yesterday. So I'm kind of pumped to get that installed to have cold beverages handy.

I also got a couple sweet blue float lights from tikiskip that I need to hang. So hopefully will have some good updates in a few days.

Wow...great job, looks so real. NICE WORK!!!!

I didn't accomplish as much on the bar last weekend as I wanted. Had a few other projects that needed to be completed instead.

I am still figuring out how I want to eventually carve the trim around the bar. Here's the latest rendition which also shows the front awning (decided to go with same metal roofing based on suggestions that thatch would be a maintenance headache). I'm planning to back light the "eyes" in the trim under the bar.

Looking sweet Brother.

Are those Edison bulbs on your string lights?

-Longboard

On 2014-07-08 12:34, Longboard wrote:
Looking sweet Brother.

Are those Edison bulbs on your string lights?

-Longboard

Thanks.... yeah they sort of have that look to them...not as fancy as some I have seen though. I have them on a dimmer as well and the filament looks pretty cool when its run at about 20%. I've thought about making shades for them to "tiki" them up a bit, but they don't look bad as is and really crank the light when I turn them up to full power.

Here's another slightly tweaked mock up...got to thinking it might look cool to attach tongues to the trim under the bar to give it a little more pop. I'm going to keep an eye out for some material to use for this. Its farily protected underneath the overhang.

hey Jim, looking awesome as always!!! you have some series carpenter skills and a knack for using the computer programs to see how it will look before starting! I'm so jealous, other than the fact you live in MI, lol
keep up the good work, btw need any more skulls or African shields??
paul

Its been awhile since I updated my thread. I've been busy working on the tiki bar and will get some updated photos around showing progress. But now that cool weather is here and I am working on winterizing the lounge, I thought I would share some photos of the flora and fauna I took over the summer around the KioWai Lounge.

My awesome hibiscus died from the cold winter last year...but these lilies were looking good this summer.

Nothing seems to slow these trumpet vines. But conditions were very good for them this summer. There's always several hummingbirds buzzing around these flowers. Around Labor Day, I was out by the pool and noticed a strange hummingbird and upon further investigation, I realized it was a hummingbird moth. (I'm including a photo, but its not mine.)

This was the year of the shrew at the KioWai. I rescued several of these guys from the pool as well as many more that weren't as fortunate:

I had no idea the tree frogs got as big as this. This tree frog was about 4-inches long. I found him hanging out on some fence boards I had removed to work on the tiki bar.

Among my many summer projects, the biggest was replacing our drainfield. I had to replant the grass in my entire backyard and had several bales of straw brought into cover the seed. I was getting a bale off the pile which was eye level when I noticed these guys...

My bananas did a lot better this year since I started them earlier than last. Last year's batch didn't make it over the winter...admittedly, I didn't do anything to winterize them since last fall there was a good chance we were going to be relocating (which didn't happen). I dug these up last weekend and will try to keep them going inside over the winter. They are now about 5-feet tall and each leaf is bigger than the previous.

Thanks to another TC member posting about a tiki she found at a Home Depot in Texas, I was able to track down two resin tikis to add to my outdoor collection. Getting them shipped from a Home Depot in Arlington, TX was not easy...fortunately I found a sympathetic person at the customer service desk to help me out. They are the ones on each side of this photo:

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2014-10-24 08:01 ]

Here are a few updates I've made to the bar over the past couple months.

Added a few more tikis to the collection:

Completely rebuilt the back bar area. Finishing it off with bac-bac matting for now. Lots of plans for the backwall, but needed to get that white fence covered. This photo shows a couple other new additions including the awesome Tiki Skip double float lamp hanging on the right in this photo. I've also added a string of vintage moai head lamps on a dimmer to each side of the bar (inside). I had two sets of lights that were different size moai heads, so I combined them so that every other one is larger/smaller. It was easier than trying to find another matching set of lights for now. I also found 3 of the large moai head lamps seen on the left of the photo...I have a red, amber and green one. This picture only shows the red one currently in the bar.

I also have been working on the trim on top and bottom of the bamboo on the outside of the bar.

I decided to go with a fairly simple carve for the outside trim as opposed to animals that I had previously posted in a mock up. With both the top and bottom trim, I went with a pattern that ties in the triangular shape of the roof. Its one of the more common patterns seen on trim here on TC...hopefully I'm not infringing on anyone's copyright on this pattern.

The top is a little more unique. The idea was to make it look somewhat like eyes. The carve pattern is based on a cowrie shell shape. Then in between each eye, there are small triangles to again tie in with the structure. I was further inspired by the light that we discussed earlier in this build thread (which isn't very tiki, but I like it):

I cut out holes in my pattern and added a glass lens for eyes. There is a little compartment behind the trim that I ran an individually addressable LED strip light so that they colors can be changed.

In addition to the individually addressable LED strip behind the "eye trim", there is also a led strip light behind the trim facing down so that it indirectly shines down on the bamboo and provides a little "courtesy light" for walking around the bar. It is also RGB so its color can be adjusted. I tend to like the red/amber light the best around the bar...easy on the eyes and sets a more relaxing mood. Here is a photo trying to show the lighting. Night photos are difficult...especially with LEDs. They tend to look more like lasers in night photos. I'm still working on dialing them down for the right subtle effect. But they do look better than this photo suggests.

I'm still working on completing the other two sides of top trim and will post some photos when its complete. Hopefully can make more progress before it gets too cold to want to work on it.

So yeah...I guess with my light up trim my bar slides further off the scale of traditional tiki. I guess it probably trends more towards kitsch tiki. But I'm building it to be fun and different, so far I think I'm still on target to achieve that.

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2014-10-24 08:03 ]

Very nice.

Looking good. Those HD look good in photos. I got the Moai but now I'm going to try to get those too.

On 2014-10-26 11:29, LoriLovesTiki wrote:
Looking good. Those HD look good in photos. I got the Moai but now I'm going to try to get those too.

My guess is those will be super hard to find now. I tracked down the company that imported them and spoke with them on the phone. They said the tikis were part of a special promotion called Hawaiian Daze that was only at Home Depots in the southwestern states. They said because it was such a success that HD is going to role that promotion out to the rest of the country next summer. They indicated that his company only supplied HD's on the west coast..I think only as far east as Kansas he mentioned. But he was hopeful that as they expand the Hawaiian Daze promotion that his area could also increase. (His company is one of the plant suppliers...so they apparently HD has different regional suppliers.)

So hopefully we will see some new styles come out next summer and they will be available nationally or at least on their website (which these were never on their site).

Hope you can find the tikis Lori. If I come across any leads I will let you know. :)

Knocked out another section of lighted trim

Installed...

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2014-10-31 07:11 ]

You're right. :( No sightings of those HD tikis anywhere on the their website. I thought they were the ones I had seen previously but I was mistaken. The tikis on their website are WAY uglier!!! I am hoping they will expand next summer as you mentioned. Good information.... thanks!

Everything looks great except for what appears to be a pair of 100 foot snakes!!!! LOL

Thanks for the kind words! I never saw the snakes again after that day. Hopefully once their hay bales were removed they moved on to another haunt.

As many of my recent additions to the Kio Wai Lounge have been hand made by either me or others here on TC, I had been considering whether to keep the original two masks that I bought when I started out. Anyways, I was shocked last week when I noticed that a woodpecker had gone after one of the masks. He almost got his hole centered which goes all the way through the mask.

Having this happen really makes me think twice about investing in a nice big hand carved tiki for my area. I wouldn't be half as amused if this were a piece that I really cared about.

Has anyone else had tikis defaced by woodpeckers?

Looking good Jim.
Me I would want a bird nest in my tiki.
Pull that tiki out a bit from the wall and add a nest or bird house in back.
How cool to have a bird flying in and out of your spot.
Disney's are fake yours would be real.
We have woodpeckers all over never had this though.
Put tiki on edge of your spot though as the birds will try to run you out
when they do nest there.
Especially wrens.

Also on your tiki in your hut have you thought about up or down lighting those?
Would use lights that you can dim but this would be a cheap way to add a nice
glow to your space.
Up light is better as then you won't see light as much and you
get the spill lighting on ceiling.

Thank you for adding my lights as well.

On 2014-11-05 07:36, tikiskip wrote:
Looking good Jim.
Me I would want a bird nest in my tiki.
Pull that tiki out a bit from the wall and add a nest or bird house in back.
How cool to have a bird flying in and out of your spot.
Disney's are fake yours would be real.
We have woodpeckers all over never had this though.
Put tiki on edge of your spot though as the birds will try to run you out
when they do nest there.
Especially wrens.

Also on your tiki in your hut have you thought about up or down lighting those?
Would use lights that you can dim but this would be a cheap way to add a nice
glow to your space.
Up light is better as then you won't see light as much and you
get the spill lighting on ceiling.

Thank you for adding my lights as well.

Yeah a bird nest in there would be really cool. We had several birds nesting around the Lounge this summer. Here is a pic of baby robins in the fence along the pool. (I don't think they go for bird boxes...but I'm sure I have other birds that would.)

That is a great idea though to turn the tiki masks into a bird nest facade.

Regarding the tiki in the hut, are you referring to the one on the front?

Loving your float lamps! Hoping to add more to the collection before next summer.

"(I don't think they go for bird boxes...but I'm sure I have other birds that would.)"
Wrens or Sparrows will, the hole size makes a difference too.

"Regarding the tiki in the hut, are you referring to the one on the front?"

No, on the inside the four tiki you have there.
Best to place four spots, one for each tiki.
This way you will not get too much light.
If you want to get really cool and fancy put colored lights behind each tiki too.

Nice work !!!
I like the cut out's for the lights .

Here is a quick mock up of what I am talking about Jim.
This tiki has Neon in back and a Halogen light in front but have made a shroud
out of a can AND it has a heavy glass gel made for high heat, so I would
say use smaller light to keep costs down.
Those high heat gels are not cheap.
I added the neon to this tiki as well but any low watt c7 type bulb will work
you will just need more of them.

Yeah that tiki looks cool with your lighting. Great idea!

Now that the ice is off the pool, I'm dusting off the bar for the summer. Here are a couple spring shots from my pad...

The darn robins have nests all over the place...this year they built inside the bar above the backbar. I wonder what these baby robins think of their decor?

Pele got a new doo for the season.

I've got a handful of build projects to work on between now and July 11...the date of our son's graduation party. Stay tuned for some actual bar updates.

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2015-06-03 06:22 ]

I think your tiki bar looks great! All that work on the roof was worth it, and your burnt beams and routered trim too.

The white fence doesn't bother me too much, maybe just some tropical looking plants would soften it some.

It's inspiring to see this from someone without a lot of building experience. Or 20 boxes of tikis they've collected to instantly fill their bar.

Thanks for your comments and compliment. I'm happy with how its turning out. I'm glad I built the roof the way I did that its done. It was challenging to build which I in retrospect makes it more rewarding.

While not tiki, the white fence doesn't bug me too much. When we entertain or even when I sit and enjoy the bar its in the evening. The tiki torches light the fence with a nice warm light and also I have two rows of hidden RGB LEDs along the fence that wash the fence in any color I want to set a mood (I generally go for amber or red). I'll try to get a photo towards evening to see if I can show that. At the end of the day, I have a grey contemporary style house with white trim, so the white fence looks best to the non-tikified masses. With that said, I've thought about extending the matting I used in the back-bar onto the fence on either side of the bar to make that area look a little more cohesive.

I've got a super cool concrete tiki mask/shield from Will Carve that I will be hanging on the fence soon too. Just need to get it painted. I picked it up from him last November while in Miami and the Keys for vacation.

In the long term, I have thought about moving the fence a 5-6 feet back along the deck area to create a planting area. I think that you are correct that some tropical looking plants would help out a lot.

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2015-06-04 05:02 ]

Looks great!
I say potted plants for that fence area.
put em in the corner, and hang pots on the fence.

And on the pool thing I may not even open our pool.
On the first of June it was 52 degrees!

Since then it has been grey and rainy all but like one day and it rained the end of that day.
Man it's been cold here.
And a cold front is moving in on Monday.

Is it warm there?
Looks like we MAY get like four warm summer like months? If that.
What a rip!
Ohio blows!

On 2015-06-04 06:43, tikiskip wrote:
Looks great!
I say potted plants for that fence area.
put em in the corner, and hang pots on the fence.

And on the pool thing I may not even open our pool.
On the first of June it was 52 degrees!

Since then it has been grey and rainy all but like one day and it rained the end of that day.
Man it's been cold here.
And a cold front is moving in on Monday.

Is it warm there?
Looks like we MAY get like four warm summer like months? If that.
What a rip!
Ohio blows!

Well Ohio does blow...I'll give you that! (Go Blue :) )

But yeah...its been a pretty miserable month here. Last weekend was one of the dreariest I can recall. 50-degrees and rainy all weekend. :(

I've thought about making some planters for the fence. Or possibly just some plants in pots on the deck in front of it. I screwed up this year...I usually pick up some palm plants on the cheap from the local box store in the spring (~$15 for a 4-5-foot tall palm). But I saw them back in early April and the next time I went to the store a few days later they were all gone. Obviously they don't live outside year round but at that price, I don't feel too bad about leaving them outside and replacing each year. I have a few houseplants, but I'm trying to avoid having a ton of plants inside. I dug up the bananas and over-wintered them in pots inside but was glad to finally get them out of the house.

I have discovered an issue or should I say put all the pieces of a puzzle together that I have been noticing over the past few weeks.

About a month ago, I had a pile of about 8 bumble bees laying on the concrete in front of the tiki bar.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed wood dust on the counter in the bar.

I finally got on a ladder and noticed a fresh hole in one of the 2x4 purlins inside the bar. I finally got a minute to do some online research and I'm pretty certain I have carpenter bees. (Apparently the males die after mating.) So far I only see one hole.

Does anyone have experience with dealing with these? I'd prefer to not have a bunch of holes eaten into the bar.

hey Jim
I had this problem also, but they were using my Tikis as homes! the problem is that they leave behind a scent, so every year the offspring follow it to the nest to have little bees. i found the humane way was to use orange oil as a spray, for some reason they dont like it, after they leave the nest plug the hole with steal wool, since they cant bore through it, and paint or lacquer the area to keep them from making new nests. other than that, they are completely harmless and are not aggressive at all, hope this helps!!

I'll look into the orange spray...where did you get it?

I'm thinking for that existing hole, I don't mind adding another burn spot to the wood. I may just give them eviction my torch.

I used the orange oil furniture spray, smells good, its food for the wood and will keep the bees out

Jimflies and PelePaul - we had (have?) a carpenter bee too. We had some people over and one of them noticed the bee going back into the hole we recently found in the wood structure of our bar, also up kind of high. I'm sadden to report to the bee lovers out there that the males in attendance took great joy in murdering the offending bee. We've just started hanging outside more as the pool was opened on Monday but haven't found any more bees or holes - yet. Thanks for the tip on the orange oil.

Jimflies - would you elaborate on picking up a concrete mask on your trip to Miami and the Keys? My husband and I are flying into Miami in July and driving to Key West for our anniversary and I'd love to acquire anything for my backyard! Mahalos in advance.

On 2015-06-05 17:38, LoriLovesTiki wrote:
Jimflies - would you elaborate on picking up a concrete mask on your trip to Miami and the Keys? My husband and I are flying into Miami in July and driving to Key West for our anniversary and I'd love to acquire anything for my backyard! Mahalos in advance.

You might want to send WillCarve a message to see what all he has. Its fun to see his carving oasis with all his projects. I bought a few items from him...the largest being a concrete shield that is about 30x18-inches. I'm trying to figure out how I want to paint it right now. I'll post some pics of soon.

I also bought a 4-foot Tiki in Islemorada from Tiki & Co. at Mile Marker 82.7. While not as traditional as some of the fine carvings here on TC, I still like it. Here are a few pics I took at Tiki & Co. I was going to get the third one from the left and a guy bought it out from under me. :( But it worked out...I purchased the one he was carving when I was there and its pretty cool too. I didn't wait for them to polyurethane it...I still need to do that, but they knocked a little $$ off since it wasn't "finished".

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2015-06-09 13:33 ]

Thanks for the info, Jimsflies! I will be on the lookout for Tiki & co. I'll also get in contact with willcarve. We're flying though so I won't be able to bring anything as big as yours though! :(

Can't wait to see your concrete piece!

:)
Lori

[ Edited by: LoriLovesTiki 2015-06-09 18:19 ]

Finally getting around to adding a awning over the front of the bar. Hopefully finish it up this weekend.

Looking Good!!

Hey is that thing going to flip up and down?
We have had some hellacious winds here.
We had a cool bamboo bar top thing that the wind ripped to shreads.

You could put vent holes in it too.

Good luck!!

No, this is permanent (not hinged). I'm hoping this will protect the bar from getting as much weather...plus that main beam across the front needed to be protected. I didn't use cedar for that like other exposed areas.

I have some corrugated metal with smaller corrugations for the top that I'm going to install after I paint it to make it look rusty (like the existing roof).

Another rainy weekend here. :( Still managing to be productive though. Before the rain came yesterday, I got the roof on the awning.

And the rain gave me a chance to get this concrete tiki mask painted...I don't think it turned out too bad. :)

Its 36" tall by about 18" wide.

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2015-06-14 10:38 ]

WOW!
That looks great.
Good choice of colors.
Good job.
Your place looks better than the Mai-Kai.
Will

On 2015-06-15 04:22, Will carve wrote:
WOW!
That looks great.
Good choice of colors.
Good job.
Your place looks better than the Mai-Kai.
Will

Thanks Will! It was great meeting you last November. Wished I lived closer...it was neat to see all of your carving projects.

I added a few more details last night after posting the photo above. I think I'm calling this done now. I have started thinking about getting it hung and making it look as good as possible on the fence.

Here it is with a few more details added...

[ Edited by: jimsflies 2015-06-15 18:32 ]

Wow..that concrete mask did turn out good!!!

I filled in the spot between the deck and bar with some pavers I had on hand last weekend. I didn't like the orange color of some of the pavers so I coated them with left over deck stain and made a pattern. It looks better than dirt...and keeps feet cleaner too (a good thing considering there is a gate there).

I finally got the shield hung. Made a couple spears and a Kini to hang behind it.

Might add a couple more spears on top or maybe a couple tiki torches at the same angels.

I know the white fence isn't a fan favorite...the deck area has a sort of "Upscale Primitive" look going on I think.

I'm open to ideas....

Looks good there.
That fence could make a great canvas.
Ask LLT to paint it up for you.