MauiRose's Malahini Tiki Room

The Home Tiki Bars section is one of my favorites on TC so I thought I'd do my part.

"Malahini" means "guest" in Hawaiian and, well, it's our guest bedroom.

Another translation --- and a more common one, it seems --- for "malahini" is "newcomer," which I think also sort of fits because most of our friends don't know much about Tiki so this room is often their introduction to it.

Blank slate after we moved in:

Picking paint was more difficult than I thought it would be. What seemed too light on the swatch looked much darker on the wall. I at first thought the middle one would be the final choice, but ended up going with the first one (the lightest).

Then paint..

Figuring out the arrangement for things:

When we moved I was so close to throwing out this three-level shelf that used to hold all our DVDs, but somebody suggested I hold onto it. It turned out to fit perfectly in the closet and the shelves are just right for Tiki mugs!

Hi MR. Looks like you are off to a good start! I really like the bar and the round rattan shelf. I need to find one of those...

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers and Aloha!

wow very very cool!!! wanna see some more phtos please!!!!

Wow...great start...nice reuse of the cabinet and love your bar. Keep up the good work, the room will be a favorite in your home.

Q-Tiki - Thanks! I scoured Craigslist for awhile until I found the bar and shelf.

Pele Paul - I'll have more photos soon. :)

Mahalo, VampiressRN!

Six years later....finally going to finish this thread....

I started by doing a lot of measuring then took a little road trip to Whittier for supplies at Oceanic Arts. I had called a few days in advance so they cut and split the bamboo pieces and had it ready to pick up. My haul was three sheets of lauhala matting (one 4' by 8' and two 3' by 6'), a few pieces of two-inch split bamboo, one-inch sea grass braid and two lengths of raincape thatch (3' by 4' each).

Very grateful for this Tiki Central thread (below) with advice about putting tape on the back of the matting when you cut it to keep it from fraying. A pair of Husky scissors worked well enough.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=35016&forum=18

Some people use a staple gun to attach it to the wall but we went with contact cement and it’s held up. The matting didn’t line up totally flush with the edges on the wall, so the segrass braid was perfect for concealing the imperfections. Working with the lauhala matting proved to be pretty labor intensive so we painted the top shelf brown like the rest of the room.

We came up with a way to hang the thatch at an angle — a curtain rod! After trimming the thatch to the desired length and width, I nailed big thumb tacks into the wall every few inches to hang the thatch and then covered up the hardware with more of that seagrass braid.

We fit two pieces of split bamboo on each side of the closet frame and super-glued them in place. As you can see, we then discovered that this particular glue didn’t dry clear! We ran some twine between the gaps of the bamboo to disguise it. (You may also have noticed that the bottom piece of matting on the wall doesn’t quite match the shade of the upper piece, but you can’t tell once we put everything in.)

Aloha Maui Rose!

Wow I really dig the tranformation on the guest room. I agree great use of the space for your bar as well. I am trying to "carve" a spot in my house or side patio for my tiki alter ego.

Keep the pics coming! :drink: :music: :)

I knew I'd seen this place somewhere else before and now realize that you're also the Tiki Chick. Thanks for resurfacing. Your site had been another great resource for tiki information for me; any thoughts on returning to it?

It's looking great!

Rob

Mele_Ipo – Mahalo! Can’t wait to see what you do with your space.

Hamo – Yep, that’s me! All the Tiki Central anniversary talk reminded me how important this place is and I wanted to finally finish my thread. I do also hope to start blogging again soon (just went to Zombie Village for the first time and it blew my mind!).

Ghostsoldier – Thanks for the kind words!

Then came the fun part of setting up the mugs and other things like the driftwood toucan perch by Tiki tOny and the Bahooka tribute sign by Lake Tiki Woodcrafts.

We rigged some white Christmas lights along the top shelf for quick and easy lighting.

And a view with the rest of the room...