Suburban Tiki

Hello all! I am new to the forum, but have been reading for about a year.

My husband Garth and I got into Tiki in 2014 when we visited Disneyland for the first time. It was our first night and we decided to grab a drink (or two, or three) at Trader Sam’s.

I don’t know if it was the amazing cocktails, or the wonderful 50’s vibe, or just the little details, but we where hooked! We purchased a couple of the mugs to remember the night by and tried to recreate some of the cocktails when we arrived back home to Brighton, in the UK. Back home we started to look up some of the other wonderful Tiki Bars, and decided that when we could next visit California we would try and see a few.

Last year we decided it was time to move out of our little one bedroom flat in Brighton, to a ‘future proof’ family home in Worthing. When we looked around the houses we would joke about space for a Tiki Bar, but didn't really mean it. We finally moved into a wonderful 3 bedroom house in the suburbs last October, and the same December, made our second trip to California.

Starting at San Fransisco, we visited Tonga Rooms, and Smugglers Cove. Then in Eemeryville, Trader Vic’s on our way to Yosemite. Trader Sam’s again in Disneyland then off to Palm Springs! This is where it went a little pear shaped, after a wonderful evening at Tonga Hut and Bootlegger Tiki, I broke my foot in three places! (Slipped in the rain). Las Vegas and Frankie’s would have to be for another trip as we were flown back home so that I could have an operation and recover.

Even with it’s abrupt end, the trip to California was amazing, and my husband said that while I was recovering he would make a start on a Tiki Bar in our house. We had an unused dining room in the centre of the house that was a perfect space for the bar.

Here is the room as a dinning room from the sales PDF before we moved in.

There was a lot of white to get rid of. We started with the skirting board and door trim. Them painted the walls red. We had decided to cover the chimney breast and celling with Lauhala matting from Cheeky Tiki in London, but it was out of stock, so the bar was on hold for a while. In the mean time we started to collect some bits and bobs.

We picket up a wonderful Tiki from Brighton carver Trader Tark, along with a mid century bar and other bits and bobs from Gumtree.

Then the matting arrived! (You can see from the picture we covered the radiator too. Just a cheap MDF one we found online, treated with teak oil)

After much reading on Tiki Central, we got to work glueing the matting onto the celling. We used carpet spray glue and cut the matting into 9 squares. Here is Garth with the first square up!

I must admit, I was quite worried when we first put it up. The finished result looked really tatty, but this all changed when the bamboo went up. Wow what a difference that made!

Then we moved onto the Chimney, adding wooden battens to box things in:

Then late in the day, after moving all our bits back in the room, it was dark and the perfect time to play with optics!
We put up some fish float lights and fitted the bar with a Hue light strip.

We have a friend that makes signs for a living and he printed us a simple PVC door sign for the glass door. Garth designed the Logo.

And here is a picture of the whole room, its still pretty bare bones, but its a good start. We have put a few more bits on the wall recently and I will add updated pictures soon.

Now time for a Navy Grog!

[ Edited by: ginnyfish 2016-10-20 09:41 ]

Off to a great start. Best of luck to you two!

Wow, great job guys! and great first post! hope u found room somewhere else for that awesome jimi hendrix painting. :)

Your bar has a really clean look!

GREAT to see how you guys jumped right in, NICE work! (-:

Thanks guys!

The BigT: The JH painting is not ours unfortunately, this is how the room looked before we purchased the house. They used this room as a dinning room, but there is also a kitchen/dinner, so we use that instead.

Next step is to get more stuff on the walls and celling. To Start with we just framed a tone of post cards so that the wall wasn't just bare, but we are starting to layer things up. We got some nice wooden boxes from Ikea, and an old trophy wheel up now and it starting to take shape.

As you can see, its quite Disney centric right now!

Lookin forward to seeing your progress.
Please keep posting-I like what you’re doing.
Cheers

awesome work so far guys! really liking that rattan planter also.

Wow really nice job there. I like the color of the room you went with. Warm, cozy look. Sorry to hear about your foot but guess it had a good outcome on your house! I really like Garth's design of the sign. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome
Looking good
Keep up the good work and cheers

Hey Britons! Great job so far! Like a few other people on here, I think that wall colors nice. Works good and I like the fact your bamboo/rattan is all dark.
Looks real classy.

I always find it interesting how Tikiphiles where you are decorate. Probably because of the lack or choice of supplies but I always find my self surprised. Great job!!

Mahalo
TabooDan

Great to see another UK Tiki Bar taking shape , nice dark feeling i your room which I prefer and lots of little details.Its a struggle for us in the UK and without CheekyTiki it would be tougher.Well done and keep posting.
Best
Mark

Looks great !!

Keep it up! More Tiki needed in the UK!

Love the color! you guys did a nice job! It can only keep getting better, cant wait to see some more pix!!!