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Balis' Hai'deaway |
MrBaliHai Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002 Posts: 859 From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2005-12-10 12:09 pm  Permalink
After 6 months of hard labor, and thousands of hard-earned shekels, my home bar is finally open, and I'm ready to start drinking!
I'm particularly happy with the bar top, a decoupage of vintage alcoholic and island ephemera that my wife and I harvested from various antique malls, glued to the bar top, then covered with a thick layer of clear epoxy:
Finally, if you're a pinball nut like I am, you may be interested in my ultra-rare, 1973 Bally Bali Hai EM machine which sits in a special alcove of the bar:

[ This Message was edited by: MrBaliHai 2013-11-20 16:57 ]
 
 
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pappythesailor Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 1566 From: Mass.
| Posted: 2005-12-11 02:16 am  Permalink
Great work. Very inspirational. I love the OA totems. Clearly, their prices are worth it. You really went the extra mile with the floor. It's awesome too.
I didn't even know they had pinball in 1937!
 
 
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MrBaliHai Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002 Posts: 859 From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2005-12-11 04:54 am  Permalink
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I didn't even know they had pinball in 1937!
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They did, but mine is from seventy-three, not thirty-seven... Pinball in the thirties was primarily used for gambling purposes.
The OA stuff was worth every penny. I also got my bamboo fencing and mattings from them. The shippings costs were painfully high, since I ordered right in the middle of last summer's gasoline price-gouging.
The floor was a real challenge. It took us a long time to find that cobblestone tile, and it required about 4 times as much grout as regular tile, but we're really happy with the way it turned out.
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Loki Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 04, 2005 Posts: 541 From: Boca Raton, FL
| Posted: 2005-12-11 05:02 am  Permalink
The bar top is great, a true one of a kind. Things like that are really special as you already have good memories about them. Killer bar stools too...When is the party?
_________________ "He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice."

 
 
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MrBaliHai Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002 Posts: 859 From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2005-12-11 05:08 am  Permalink
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When is the party?
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How soon can you get over here?...
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pappythesailor Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 1566 From: Mass.
| Posted: 2005-12-12 09:55 am  Permalink
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On 2005-12-11 02:16, pappythesailor wrote:
Great work. Very inspirational. I love the OA totems. Clearly, their prices are worth it. You really went the extra mile with the floor. It's awesome too.
I didn't even know they had pinball in 1937!
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Whoops! No wonder I have such a hard time with math....
 
 
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The Sperm Whale Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 23, 2004 Posts: 1553 From: Lakewood California
| Posted: 2005-12-12 10:28 am  Permalink
Very Cool Bar!!! Great work!!!Where do you live??
 
 
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MrBaliHai Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002 Posts: 859 From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2005-12-12 11:13 am  Permalink
I live in Wisconsin, about 100 miles east of Minneapolis/St. Paul.
 
 
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Matt Reese Tiki Socialite
Joined: May 09, 2005 Posts: 1182 From: San Diego
| Posted: 2005-12-12 11:38 am  Permalink
Looks great. I can't get enough pics of peoples home bars. Wonderfull job!
 
 
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pablus Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 23, 2003 Posts: 2158 From: www.crazedmugs.com
| Posted: 2005-12-13 01:50 am  Permalink
Nice.
Makes me thristy.
Those bamboo stools are darker and rougher hewn versions of the one I have at the Lagoon. They look great. I'm curious to know where you scored them. I know they were expensive... yikes - I got a great deal on mine and they were still a stretch.
The place looks great. Thanks for taking the time to post it.
 
 
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MrBaliHai Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002 Posts: 859 From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2005-12-13 07:59 am  Permalink
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Those bamboo stools are darker and rougher hewn versions of the one I have at the Lagoon. They look great. I'm curious to know where you scored them. I know they were expensive... yikes - I got a great deal on mine and they were still a stretch.
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I actually found them advertised on a couple of different websites that apparently all deal with the same importer, so I bought them from the site with the lowest price: http://bar-stools-barstools.com/
Yes, painfully expensive, but I knew that I wasn't going to stumble across a set of vintage Witco stools at a garage sale, at least not where I live, so I just bit the bullet.
And thanks for all the positive comments, everyone! It's hard for me to be objective when I've been so close to the project for so long, so I tend to focus on the things that *didn't* turn out the quite the way I wanted. But overall, I have to say that it turned out much better than I expected. I give a lot of credit to my handyman, who offered a lot of good suggestions for overcoming various obstacles, and did a great job working with unfamiliar materials.
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JohnnyP Tiki Socialite
Joined: Nov 23, 2005 Posts: 1693 From: Attica, MI
| Posted: 2005-12-14 11:13 am  Permalink
Very nice. The poles on the door look just the Bali Hai.
JP
 
 
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MrBaliHai Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002 Posts: 859 From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2005-12-25 05:36 am  Permalink
Mahalo to Mrs. Bali Hai (AKA BEST.WIFE.EVAR!), the Hai'deaway is now sporting a fabulous carved tiki post from Tiki Master (www.tikimaster.com)! I'll be dancing around it later in my grass skirt as part of my traditional Goofmas celebrations.
Unfortunately, as you can see in the photograph, the post has a large crack in the base. Normally, I'd just leave it there, as it adds character, but the base appears to be glued to the rest of the post, so I'm afraid that bad things will happen if the crack gets any bigger.
I know that a lot of fine woodworkers are lurking around here, so tell me, what would be the best way to go about sealing this crack, wood putty, silicone caulk, glue, or none of the above?
Mele Goofmas!
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Weblog: Eye of the Goof
[ This Message was edited by: MrBaliHai 2013-11-20 16:58 ]
 
 
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MrBaliHai Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002 Posts: 859 From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2005-12-30 8:04 pm  Permalink
I've been doing a bit of work on the Hai'deaway this week. As you can see from the photograph, I installed rope lights underneath the bar, and since no one offered up any suggestions for filling the crack in the base of the tiki totem pole, I went ahead and tried a couple of things on my own.
I can tell you right off that glue is a very bad choice for crack filling; it leaks out of the tiniest gaps in the wood, even if you try taping them shut, and it gets all over everything. I had more success with latex wood filler, but I had to overfill the crack by quite a bit because it shrunk so much when it dried. Filler also doesn't take stain very well, so I had to use a solid color which didn't really match the rest of the post, but looks okay as long as it's dark. I'll find a closer match eventually.
Happy New Year! You know where I'll be tomorrow night...
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Weblog: Eye of the Goof
[ This Message was edited by: MrBaliHai 2013-11-20 17:00 ]
 
 
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Benzart Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jan 09, 2004 Posts: 10397 From: Port Saint Lucie, Florida
| Posted: 2005-12-31 04:57 am  Permalink
Excellent work on the bar Mr BaliHai, I Especially love the lighting, Really Sweet. I Love the Bartop also. there are so many different parts about it thai aretop notch it's hard to say what is best. The over all look is the best. Well done.
As far as filling the crack, you are better off leaving it. If you do Anything, just give it a few good coats of varnish, including the ends to seal the pores which may slow the cracking. As you have found, anything you put in the crack will not match the surrounding wood and will look worse then the split. Just realize that checking(cracking) adds character and makes it look older and more authentic. When you bring raw wood indoors, into a heated or airconditioned room, there is minimum humidity meaning those air conditioning/heating units suck the moisture out of the air and anything else. That is what causes the checking.
Again, Beautiful bar..
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