Tiki office

We don't have a good place to put a tiki bar in our house so the wife is letting me tikify the home office. There's still a desk and a computer and printer in here but I'm trying to make it as much of an escape as possible for the evenings and I gotta say it's great to sit back and sip a Mai Tai or Daiquiri while listening to soothing sounds in here. It's still a work in progress but here's what its looking like today starting with the view from my desk...

Looks GOOD Mike!

Nice! Love the vibe!

That looks like a great start!

looks very cool.

Where did you find the shelves?

Thanks everyone. Sorry the pics kinda suck.

On 2015-12-22 17:31, TheParkCollector wrote:
Where did you find the shelves?

Which shelves? The wall mounted one with thatch top? Found it in Springfield, MO last year. Don't know its origin but it's built very well.

The small one on the floor I found at an antique mall outside of Waco recently for 20 bucks.

You are doing a great job...it looks wonderful. The atmosphere should help you get "work" done in your office.

The swizzle sticks you framed looks awesome!!

Thanks. I got the idea from someone here. I really need to take some daytime pics cuz these look awful.

That will help you get through the work day

Great office! If you gotta' work, might as well work on the beach... more or less! :)

I dig the lights, are they fiberglass covered in the chunk-style stuff?

On 2016-02-04 00:59, Fez Moai wrote:
I dig the lights, are they fiberglass covered in the chunk-style stuff?

Sorry, missed your question. I believe they are made of resin.

My wife found me awesome bamboo and hibiscus barkcloth curtains for the office which we put up on a bamboo rod and since I finally have a day off with nothing to do figured I'd take some day time pics since the original photos looked so crappy.

Still a work in progress but coming along. Mainly just need to get rid of this pesky desk and put a bar in...

[ Edited by: mikehooker 2016-03-16 12:29 ]

[ Edited by: mikehooker 2016-03-16 12:31 ]

I really like the swizzle stick display case (and the whale art over the aquarium). Nice job!

You have some really nice pieces in your office,love the hawaiiana pieces.Like what you have done with your office so far.

Nice pieces displayed in your office Mike.Do you ever get any ” work” done in there?
I particularly like the coral walls.
Mahalo for sharing

Have added a few mugs and things to the office/tiki room lately. The most notable change was swapping out the old Witco ship for this outrigger we just found:

My wife has been doing a nice job taking care of the fish tank which mostly contains coral and live rock at the moment.

Still trying to convince her we should do away with the desk and put a bar in its place since I don't work from home anymore and we hardly use the computer or do work in here.

Very nice. I really like the lamp and the floor tikis.

Sweet reef!

I've got a pic on my tank in my build thread as well. Would love to have you share some more pics on my website, http://www.captivereefs.com.

That coral wall color is divine! Any chance you remember who makes it and what its called?

Wow, can't believe it's been almost two years since my last update here. The biggest changes have been swapping the desk for a bar and exchanging the credenza for a sofa. It was a tough decision to get rid of some of the mid century furniture we loved but it's no longer an office (though we still refer to it as that out of habit). It's now a full on tiki room so we need it to be as inviting and accommodating as possible.

Daytime view

Nighttime shot

Still working on lighting. I have a few more fixtures to hang including the Orchids lamp currently sitting on the bar but need to make sure it remains ambient and not too bright in here.

We had some major house renovations done last April where we had to move out and put EVERYTHING we own in storage, so unfortunately we made the decision to sell the fish tank as there was no way we could maintain it during our time away. I have since picked up a rattan tank but it will be used for display rather than living organisms. You can sort of see it in the corner. I'll show it off once I figure out what the setting inside it will be.

The wife won't let me paint the ceiling, so until I figure out matting or something else we could put up there so it's not so glaringly white, I put together this little bit of eye candy.

These two Witco pieces were found in Springfield, MO for $25

I'm real proud of the bar. I found it at an estate sale and completely restored it. It wound up being waaaayyy more work than I anticipated and I probably could have built one from scratch in less time and for less money than I have invested in this one, but such is life.

What follows is the plight of a madman....

So this is what the bar originally looked like. From afar, it's great.

But up close, the original stain was chipping off, and it really was a much darker color than I wanted.

So I decided to pop off all the rattan pieces, 50 of them, and sand them down.

Some may say I should have kept the natural patina, but this thing spent a lot of time outdoors and was seriously neglected. The entire underside of the bar was infested with mud dauber nests. I didn't feel comfortable bringing any element of this into my home without a serious cleaning. So I stripped it of any potential funk.

Once I got it down to just the hardboard I realized it had a lot of water damage. So I ripped that off too and found a bunch more dauber nests hidden in areas I wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. It was pretty freakin nasty. I spent hours removing rusty staples and nails and scraping and cleaning all the surfaces.

Proceeded to give the frame and shelves two coats of paint and finally I was no longer grossed out.

Put up and painted new hardboard. it's starting to look like a bar again!

Stained all the rattan in amber shellac. This is the color I wanted.

Borrowed a neighbors nail gun and started putting it back together, opting to make the Bosko plaque the centerpiece instead of the cloth it originally had. Also got around to sanding the thick trim piece around the top of the bar which was a bitch cuz it wasn't easily removable like everything else so I had to be a lot more careful.

I damaged the foot rest supports when pulling off the hardboard so I did my best to replicate them with a jigsaw and sander.

And countless hours of blood, sweat and tears later, all done!

Now do I try to tackle those bar stools? The dark color super bothers me but I wouldn't know how to effectively strip the finish off of those.

Whoa! That bar restoration took some dedication. Turned out great though. I've got a rattan bar that was made just late enough to have that dark stain that makes it so much more 70's looking than 40's-60's looking. Seeing how much work you did, I think I'll leave mine as is! Congrats on the full transformation from office to bar. I dig it.

Bravo, Mike! Nice to see others suffer from the same OCD afflictions I do when it comes to these projects! You've done a mighty fine job on bringing that old bar back to life. It looks like a million bucks! Anything worth doing is worth doing right, right? Your tiki room is looking great as well. The first thing I looked for was that Orchids lamp. Get that sucker hung! :wink:

Out standing effort.
Good job too.
Try your hand at carving.

Thanks guys. I have some more things planned including working on carving some trim panels. Hopefully it's not another two years before my next update.

Missed this till now. Killer space Mike!

Thanks Roy. Was great meeting you last night. And great timing for a bump. Our home was recently the setting of a lengthy photoshoot with several models and we just received the latest issue of Pinup Kulture Magazine featuring a spread taken in the tiki room.

The room is always a work in progress and evolving ever so slightly. Will have to take some more current photos.

That bar rebuild was epic! The results are fantastic though, nicely done. I don't know if I'd have had the endurance to do all of that, but it looks amazing.

Really nice to see this bar refurbishment/rebuild, thanks for the step by steps. I've got something similar that needs attention, so I appreciate the motivation! Great tiki room as well.

Same here Mike! Congrats on the photo spread. Pretty cool.