When we lived in the Middle East (ME) a couple years ago, we went to a friends' house party. Mike served cocktails out of this exquisitely carved bar they bought on their first overseas tour in Nigeria. They lugged that bar through all their subsequent tours--I think 5. I wanted to make my own.
My wife loves Hawaii. She wants to retire there. I wanted something a little more formal than a tiki bar with a touch of modern. I was inspired by a free standing bar that had some split bamboo poles lining the curved front. I looked around but could not find any bamboo poles. One of my neighbors offered up bamboo from her yard but it would be a lot of work to process it to a usable state. I kept looking. In the meantime I made a scale model from cardboard (which I never do). It's going to 6' wide, 42" tall, and about 20" deep.
Then while driving around we saw a woman hand weaving these cane mats which are used by the locals as a "mattress" they lay on top of a string frame. It was the look we were going for and was already the right size. I'm going to frame it out and attach it to the front.
I wanted to be sure I liked the dimensions and also needed a template to bend the plywood over the front of the bar, so I used some plywood from the shipping crates to mock it up. It's going to be big, but we liked it.
I still needed wood for the sides and the other shelves but already picked out the top slab (see my post in Around the Coffee Pot), however, they just don't sell that wood in 3/4" thicknesses; they're kept thick or slabbed only. I was strolling through the local HD clone here, and lo and behold, they sell teak! My wife mentioned Central America has been trying to get teak plantations going. My Dad was a forester from where we're from and he managed the teak forests there so it's nice to finally be able to use it myself. I haven't because of the cost, but here it's $3.70/bf. Before your head explodes, that is for finger jointed T&G floor boards that are only 2 1/2" wide. However, it works for me! Now I'm scheming on what other teak furniture I can build before we leave.
Right now I'm waiting for the glue to dry in my teak panels, but next steps are to cut the panels to final size (with front curve) and start joining things together. My plan is to build this so it can be disassembled and shipped relatively flat. Mike and Melissa's bar doesn't come apart and the movers actually had to hoist it up to their 5th floor apartment because it was too big to fit into the elevator.
Paul
My wife loves Hawaii. She wants to retire there. I wanted something a little more formal than a tiki bar with a touch of modern. I was inspired by a free standing bar that had some split bamboo poles lining the curved front. I looked around but could not find any bamboo poles. One of my neighbors offered up bamboo from her yard but it would be a lot of work to process it to a usable state. I kept looking. In the meantime I made a scale model from cardboard (which I never do). It's going to 6' wide, 42" tall, and about 20" deep.
Then while driving around we saw a woman hand weaving these cane mats which are used by the locals as a "mattress" they lay on top of a string frame. It was the look we were going for and was already the right size. I'm going to frame it out and attach it to the front.
I wanted to be sure I liked the dimensions and also needed a template to bend the plywood over the front of the bar, so I used some plywood from the shipping crates to mock it up. It's going to be big, but we liked it.
I still needed wood for the sides and the other shelves but already picked out the top slab (see my post in Around the Coffee Pot), however, they just don't sell that wood in 3/4" thicknesses; they're kept thick or slabbed only. I was strolling through the local HD clone here, and lo and behold, they sell teak! My wife mentioned Central America has been trying to get teak plantations going. My Dad was a forester from where we're from and he managed the teak forests there so it's nice to finally be able to use it myself. I haven't because of the cost, but here it's $3.70/bf. Before your head explodes, that is for finger jointed T&G floor boards that are only 2 1/2" wide. However, it works for me! Now I'm scheming on what other teak furniture I can build before we leave.
Right now I'm waiting for the glue to dry in my teak panels, but next steps are to cut the panels to final size (with front curve) and start joining things together. My plan is to build this so it can be disassembled and shipped relatively flat. Mike and Melissa's bar doesn't come apart and the movers actually had to hoist it up to their 5th floor apartment because it was too big to fit into the elevator.
Paul
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