Post #147692 by badmojo on Fri, Mar 18, 2005 9:16 AM

After reading SoBeTiki's post about his roll of corrugated Tapa, I thought it would be a perfect cheap, non-permanent(we rent) solution for the ceiling on our sun porch. I had painted it beige/khaki with some leftover paint last summer, so it made a good base coat for a faux finish. My first step was to paint the molding with some brown latex, using the brush strokes to simulate wood grain. I wanted to use a 2' wide border with the Tapa, and leave the center section open. After marking out the center, I rolled on a coat of the same brown latex, 70/30 mix with water to thin it down a bit. I took a simple window squeegee and cut a series of notches into it.

Using the squeegee I first ran it over the wet paint horizontally, wiping the blade after each pass. Once that was done I ran it vertically. The paint is pretty forgiving so you can kind of touch up areas where too much paint remains, making the lines a little prominent.


After letting it dry I went ahead and stapled up the Tapa. Now here's my tip of the day: Use a permanent marker in the appropriate shade on the back of the staples before you load them into the gun.



This weekend I plan on hiding the inside edges of the Tapa with some stained 1"x2" Molding. After I get the 1x2s up, I'm going to use split bamboo to form a grid in the center section. I had planned on running more 1"x2" all the way around the outside edge, but the Tapa blends in pretty well with the existing molding, and the 1/2" staples seem sufficient enough to hold it up.
Notice my lovely view of snow & icicles. Spring can't come soon enough!

[ Edited by: badmojo 2006-03-07 19:51 ]