Desert Hibiscus Room - Mesa, AZ

Hi All,

Thanks to a much too understanding Mrs-tiki-teo and the inspiration of you fine people, I have been cleared to transform a 10' x 15' den into the Desert Hibiscus Room. This won't compete with some of the palaces on here but it's my bit of tiki in the desert. The pics below represent about 15 months of work - mainly on weekends here and there. Not everything falls into an orthodox view on tiki. For example, there are some Caribbean elements. Although this may be appropriate on some level since it forms the foundation of tiki drinks. So for now, thanks for looking! I will try and post some night pictures and progress on other ideas for the room. Mahalo!

The entrance to the Desert Hibiscus Room:

The roof:

Very well done!

Now that's a pretty good base, But where is the bar?

Glad you asked!

Unfortunately it doesn't fit in the space I've got. Oh, to have a basement...

Nice looking room and that "bar" is VERY impressive. Nice selection you have there.

Love your tiki fountain. Did you do that yourself?

• Dale

Very well done! It's a shame that you haven't any rum, though.

Need rum?
Let me know and I'll drive up from Casa Grande with a bottle. I'll even stick around and help you drink it.

LIKE that coffee table!

I'd love to take credit for the tiki fountain but it was purchased at a home & garden show. There are some ideas in the works though to add lighted misters to the bamboo columns that could be triggered on-demand. Special effects ala Trader Sam's.

Nice work. Can you detail some of the building process?

Hi from a fellow Arizonian! Funny we saw that fountain or a similar one of craigslist now I guess I know who got it !! :) Looks great!

wow, really love your room, especially the ceiling! what an awesome space! where did you get your tiki standing on the bamboo? that's too cool!
wanna see more pix, especially the liquor pantry !!!

paul

Great lookin' space. I also love the boomerang coffee table (antique or new one?) and killer looking ceiling! Would love to see some "before" pics, too!

Thanks for posting!

Welcome to TC, you have done some great work there. Really nice job on the ceiling, well organized space and overall decor. Nice libation collection too.

On 2014-06-23 18:24, VampiressRN wrote:
Welcome to TC, you have done some great work there. Really nice job on the ceiling, well organized space and overall decor. Nice libation collection too.

"Libation" wow that's a $10.00 word! I had to actually look it up!!! I agree your liquor cabinet is festooned with a plethora of fine beverages!!!

Thanks for all the comments! I wish I had taken more "before" and "in-progress" pictures now but wasn't sure that it would be worthy of posting in the end. Some of the more time-consuming projects were the bamboo curtain, roof, and wall carving.

The doorway was arched on the top and all the bamboo curtains out there are mounted to a flat frame. Had to buy a curtain, clip off each bamboo string, and re-hang it with an eye hook:

There were a lot of great ideas on here for what to do with the roof. Bamboo Ben had posted some photos of a palm thatch ceiling with bamboo pole cross beams that looked pretty cool so I had to try it. Started by screwing some wood furring strips lengthwise across the room into the ceiling studs at about 2' intervals. The palm thatching was stapled into these. Then torched and attached 1" bamboo poles along the strips with the palm thatching. Torched some 2" bamboo poles and attached them crosswise with a screw at each crossing. Then added some rope "ties" that end up hiding the screws.

The wood carving probably took the most time since I am not experienced with a router:

Standard pine board from the hardware store with patterns sketched on. Major cuts by a fixed-depth router. Fine touches and sanding with a Dremmel. Torched and wire brushed. Then stained and applied two coats of polyurethane. I'll have to say some of the carvers on here make this look a lot easier than it is. My hats off to them!

Sorry for the radio silence - finally finished work on a special effect in the tiki room! The inspiration came from Trader Sam's at the Disneyland Hotel. The idea is creating an eruption with the tiki statue (hereafter known as Kona Joe), complete with lighting and sound effects.

It begins with a multi-channel DMX control box and LED light strips - bright white and RGB style:

Need a power supply for the DMX controller and LED strips:

Ultra-sonic misters with RED LEDs for Kona Joe:

And a USB to DMX adapter to connect with the PC:

Install DMXControl, throw together an audio track with special effects and here is the result. Sorry for the video quality - this was the best camera I could locate.

http://youtu.be/cRXLJSKosKM

I'd say that router work is pretty darned good, even if you are just starting with it. I chose to do far less complicated patterns in my Kanaloa Lounge, and it was still quite difficult. Mind you, I'm no expert with a router either.

I love the lighting/ lightening effects. That's the sort of thing that truly makes a room memorable. Great work.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm no Disney Imagineer but I'm happy with the results.

Great curtain and the eruption is wonderful. Keep up the great work!!!

Excellent effects! Wonderful, with the advent of the retail LED gizmos this is now possible!

I'm impressed (and still confused) with that elaborate lighting set up. Can't wait to see some pics of it in use. Your construction is very well done.

I've been wanting to add some strategic spotlights to the walls to highlight the masks and such. Thought it would be cool to have DMX-controlled spotlights like the rest of the LED strips so they could change color and be included in other lighting effects. The problem is nobody seems to sell anything like this. The only ones I could find were more like searchlights meant for DJ special effects. So the quest was to create one. I cut LED strips into three segments and connected them back-to-back (a total of 9 LEDs).

Then cut and torched a 5-6" piece of bamboo with a node about 2" from the end. Folded the LED strip into the bamboo end up against the node and hot-glued in place. I don't know if anyone else has problems with larger bamboo poles cracking but this ended up working nicely here. The connection wire goes nicely out the cracked side.

Screwed the spotlight into a bamboo crossbeam, covered with a rope tie, and wired up:

I've been pretty happy with the results. The light is not super powerful but just enough to create a nice accent. Below is the spotlight pointed on an early Christmas present from Mrs. Tiki-Teo. She is way too nice to me!

Hi All,

I've had some time to play a little with the programming of lighting for the Kona Joe eruption. Wanted to get the shelf lights involved a little more. I'm still a novice and probably using a fraction of the capabilities but see what you think. There is now a "flickering" effect during the eruption and a lightning strike causes the shelf lights to "stun" white and then fade. Sorry again for the poor video quality. Link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9So__XbE0fI

Dude, that's awesome......

Could you please go into more detail of how you did your bamboo curtain? I have the same type of archway and I'd like to use your idea. Thanks!

Mahalo hang10tiki!

lizerlu, the bamboo curtain in the archway was time-consuming but not too difficult. I ended up buying two of the standard "straight" bamboo curtains:

These are individual bamboo strands connected by a wire loop into the top frame. Clip the wire at the top of the frame to get an individual strand. Then get some small eye hooks like these:

Pry open the hook slightly so you can attach the bamboo strand. Then screw into the archway and attach one-by-one. I added a bead of hot glue when finished for added strength and to prevent the strand of coming off the hook.

Happy tiki building!

I love this room. And the effects are awesome. Super jealous.

Your room is awesome. I really like the lighting. How hard is it to program the DMX controller? I am no code monkey.

Storm

Thanks guys! The DMX controller was not too difficult to program. I am using freeware called DMXControl. It takes some trial and error and is not the most user-friendly but you can get through it. Just start simple with turning lights on/off, then move on to colors, fading, etc. The feature that sold me was the built-in audio player where you can add lighting cues at various points. For example, adding a light flash just before a thunder strike in the audio track.

Great video of your room in action!

Let me start by saying you've got a nice space going so far, but those special effects are just too cool for words. You said you were inspired by Trader Sams and you are definitely well on your way to creating your own imagineering feat! I'm a sucker for lighting and sound effects in a tiki pad, so you really have me impressed with what you have going so far. I've played with lighting and sound in my own home bar, and you've definitely sparked inspiration. Keep up the terrific work and can't wait to see the next things you do with Kona Joe and the Desert Hibiscus Room! Thanks for sharing!

OK...
Well I tried to PM you :)

Could we or I get more information on what you purchased or where? I found the USB part...

Can you hook other stuff to it or know where I can find this info? I see you hooked the mist machine how? Is it just a 110 plug-in?

Cheers,

Ghost

I love that bamboo curtain!!!

Thanks everyone for the kind words! Sorry I've been away for a while. Bogged down in home improvements not tiki-related. Will be working on some new special effects in the next few months.

HG, below is what I used for some of the other DMX components.

24-Channel DMX Controller to drive LED strips. An RGB LED strip will use three channels, one for each color. A single-color LED strip only needs one channel.
https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/dmx-controllers-decoders/dmx-24ch-lv-24-channel-led-dmx-controllerdecoder/1137/

4-Channel DMX Dimmer Pack to turn Kona Joe lights and misters on/off. Simple 110V AC outlet controlled by DMX.
https://www.bulbamerica.com/products/4-channel-dmx-dimmer-pack

DMX is connected in a daisy chain. Most devices will have a connector-in and a connector-out to continue the chain. Mine is wired from the USB controller to the 24-channel DMX pack to the 4-channel dimmer pack and then to a DMX terminator (small plug-in device that ends the chain). Connector/cable style of choice is usually XLR3 which you can get through Monoprice. Since the devices are on the same chain, they need to be configured with different addresses. The product manual will go over how to do this.

Happy Tiki Building!

Aloha again! Long time, no post. Sorry, it's been a busy summer and not much time to do tiki work. Been working on a rain storm effect. Not completely finished but far enough along to post the progress. A while ago a relative sent me a battery-operated hula doll:

After lifting her skirt and wiring up a small power supply I was able to work her into the rain storm along with thunder/lightning and drum chanting to start it off.

Video also posted below if you're interested. Sorry my camera does not do well in low-light conditions but you can get the overall idea:
https://youtu.be/Iox53Uny82k

Will be heading to Vegas tomorrow with a stop at the newly opened Golden Tiki!

This is great. I like how the audio tied to the hula dancer gets eerily cut short.

I saw earlier you used some reduced rgb led strips to make spot lights. Have you tried anything like this?:

They're 12volt mr16 rgb leds that are dmx addressable.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/mutilple-colors-dmx-controlled-led-rgb_1551800880.html?spm=a2700.7724838.30.1.DK2n6t&s=p

I haven't jumped in to dmx programming (yet) but love what you've done with it. Your lightening flashes are perfect!

Here's something similar posted earlier, it's Arduino based, but on a much smaller scale compared to your DMX project:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=48850&forum=1