Tiki build-along, pt. 26

Ask any tiki bar enthusiast what's the most important element of a good tiki bar--be it home or public--and you'll likely get a wide range of answers, anywhere from quality of the cocktails served to the ratio of Tikis Per Square Yard (aka the TiPSY factor). One element that's likely to be in anyone's top 5, however, is lighting. Tikiphiles obsess over lighting, and I'll admit I'm no different with the Lagoon of Mystery. Since the overarching theme for my home bar is that of a tropical lagoon paradise, my lighting had to follow that theme. I had already painted the ceiling blue, with silhouettes of sea creatures to create the illusion of being underwater. How could I further enhance that illusion? Well, if you've been keeping score at home, you'll know I picked up some LED water ripple projector lights online and have been plugging them in to shine blue waves on the ceiling. It's a fantastic effect, but my ad-hoc setup needed a permanent solution. I couldn't keep running extension cords throughout the lounge. Enter the previous homeowner's electrical work. See that bank of four light switches below? They're inside the house, and control the ceiling fans and various outdoor lights. Well, three of them do. The third switch from the left, we never could figure out what it controlled, and the previous owners left no instructions.

Me, being the curious person that I am, dismantled the switches and then climbed into the attic, intent on solving the mystery of the useless switch. I located the wire attached to it, and traced all the way back through the attic, over the garage and into The Wife's photo studio, where there's a second breaker box. I have to point out at this point that although I performed this particular bit of detective work in October, it was not particularly cool, even by Texas standards. I lost approximately five pounds in body weight each time I ventured up.

Lo, and behold, the wire ended at the breaker box, but did not connect to any particular breaker. It must have at one time, but an addition or remodel at some point rendered the switch moot, so they just disconnected and let hang. This suited my purposes just fine. I'm not a master electrician by any means, but I've done basic wiring, and since the breaker box had plenty of slots to spare, I installed a new breaker switch and connected the wayward wire. The previously dead switch would now be solely devoted to lights in the Lagoon of Mystery. Since the LEDs I'm using draw only a tiny fraction of the amperage incandescent bulbs do, a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that I'd run out of physical space to put new lighting long before I ran out of circuit capacity. Cool!

My plan all along was to somehow hardwire my LED wave projectors, and now it was time to put that plan into action. I cut the plug off each lamp, then stripped the insulation to expose the copper wire. I did the same with the new extension cord as well (it's not an extension cord, but the cord serves to extend the wire... oh, nevermind).

Once the wire was spliced together, I sealed the splice from the elements with multiple layers of heat-shrink insulation sleeves. I'd never worked with this stuff before, but it didn't take long to get the hang of it. Now, the whole cord was protected from the elements. I have to disclose here that neither the LED projectors nor their cords are outdoor rated. I'd prefer something a bit more weather sealed, but that doesn't exist--at least not in the sub-$100 a pop range. Fortunately, the Lagoon occupies a covered outdoor patio that protects the lighting from the elements, and bamboo sheaths the wiring, so UV damage is of little concern. It's not an ideal situation, but it's working well so far.

Well, things were going a bit too easy for me. The LED projectors I'd been using? I only had three, and needed five more to fully illuminate the length of the ceiling. Unfortunately, in the year that passed since I purchased the first ones, the entire line had been discontinued. Seriously. They were replaced by an "improved" version that had a remote speed control instead of an analog dial (there were only three settings on the new version, all far faster than what I wanted). Even worse, the new lights were DC powered, and came with an adapter plug, meaning I couldn't actually hardwire them! Arrgh! Thus I embarked on a spree of buying random LED projectors to see if I could find a replacement. I ordered one from AliExpress that was identical in all ways to my original, save that it only projected blue light. Eureka! This was my solution... except, when I got it and plugged it in, the light projected was purple, not blue. A replacement confirmed that the light was definitely purple. Another potential replacement projected a pattern that looked more like smoke than anything else. Finally, after a couple of months on this Quixotic quest, I settled on the bubble-looking projectors below. They weren't a perfect match for what I had previously, but the light color was very close, as was the ripple pattern. Yay!

Back up into the attic I went, installing junction boxes and tying in the new lights with pigtail splices. Electricity's not something to take lightly, so make sure the breaker's off when doing this kind of work. And make sure you know what you're doing. I was doing a straight run with nothing complicated involved, so as long as I took it slow and double-checked my work, nothing was in danger of going awry.

Once all the splices were completed, I closed up the junction box and nailed down all the power cables. If you're interested in the DIY approach, there are quite a few good home electrical books on the market. I've always used the Stanley Guide to Complete Wiring, but I'm sure there are more up-to-date books available now. Youtube is also a good source in a pinch, but, as with all things, caveat emptor. If you're not comfortable doing your own wiring, hire a professional (I know my limits--when it cam time to install the mini split air conditioner in the photo studio, I didn't even pretend I could install it myself).

Next, I had to mount the LED projectors. I took a pine board and cut it into 4" lengths. After staining (Minwax Special Walnut!) I drilled out the center and inserted a brass screw, which I then epoxied into place. After that, I screwed the mount into place on the wall.

Then I installed the projector, using washers and a nut to secure it to the epoxied screw. Tightening or loosening the nut allows me to reposition the light for most effective projection angle. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

But since I was hardwiring the Lagoon lighting, I had another long-planned project to tackle at the same time. Over the course of two Halloweens (never let it be said that I don't play the long game) I cleaned out local stores when they put their plastic skulls on clearance. Fortunately, they all got their skulls from the same supplier, so they matched. Yes, there are better-quality, more realistic skulls on the market, but I paid on average $2.50 for each. When you need close to 40 (that's a guess--I lost count long ago) budget becomes an issue.

On occasion, I've poor-mouthed Pilikia, the first tiki bar I ever visited. That criticism is well-deserved. They had some good decor, however, and one thing that stuck with me was their wall of golden skulls. It had a aura of Indiana Jones, Lost World, mysterious civilization about it. I liked it, and when it came to decorating that ceiling beam bisecting the ceiling of the Lagoon, I wanted my own wall of skulls. Later, I realized 3 Dots and a Dash in Chicago had a big skull motif as well, and Hugman's Oasis in San Antonio is going to have skulls out the wazoo. But I built my wall of golden skulls without knowing about any of those.

Not content to just spray paint them, I wanted to add some individual character to them, so using my trusty Dremel, I cut out random teeth from the lower jaws. This was fun, and I varied up the patterns considerably. Some have all of their teeth, but many have a patchwork of choppers.

I also used two different shades of gold spray paint, for additional variety. The finished product looked pretty good.

Alas, "pretty good" was not good enough for me. So I hit upon another idea. First, I applied epoxy to the eye sockets.

Then I inserted plastic gemstones. I'm very happy with how this turned out. The gems and golden skulls just seem to go together. There's an element of the Goonies and pirate treasure, but the real inspiration came from the 1977 Disney animated film, The Rescuers. Remember that big gem in the skull? I also love the Three Investigators novel, Mystery of the Fiery Eye when I was much, much younger. All those childhood influences are coming out now. I coated the plastic gems with UV blocker to protect from ultraviolet degradation. I'm not sure how effective that will prove to be, but the gems are super-cheap and easily replaced.

I ended up with a bunch of skulls. I epoxied an eye ring to the back of the head, and they were ready for mounting.

The LED lighting strips I had all came with DC converter plugs, so I hand to install a wall socket in the attic, then run the cord through the ceiling. That wasn't too difficult. I hid the LED control box behind one of the speakers. The LED strip had worthless "adhesive backing" so I ended up duct taping the strip to the beam. I had enough strip to run it from one end of the beam to the other, and back again.

I installed a great many vinyl-covered cup hooks upon which to hang the skulls. Remember my mentioning the eye rings on the back of each one? There you go.

And there we have it, the bank of skulls looking down. There were a few gaps once all was said and done, so I painted a few miniature skulls gold and placed them in the gaps. I'd love to add golden monkey skulls, but I haven't found any cheap enough to be viable.

But this build-along was supposed to be about lighting, right? Where are the lights? Here you go. This is what the skulls look like, as the backlighting LED strip is changing colors throughout the evening.

Here's teh effect the ripple light projectors create on the ceiling.

And here's the ripple lights interacting with the tapa light covers I made for the ceiling fans.

Finally, remember that rattan aquarium I acquired last year? I even ran a wire to it, and installed one of those LED projector lights that didn't work for the ceiling. After adding some gravel, tiki mugs, fake crawfish and silicone jellyfish, the entire setup look surprisingly close to a real, live aquarium.

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