Post #501722 by TabooDan on Thu, Dec 31, 2009 8:27 PM

Okay, finally a little update. I have been so busy with alot of other things that over 7 months has passed with little work done on the room. I really gotta pull the finger out and do it but just so much of.....life just keeps popping up!

Here is where I left yah with the end of the room, the Hut area, where I am building a wall cabinet to hide the window and go behind the bar:

This is after the cabinet was built and ready for the stain:

The corner shelf on the right I was not happy with so I cut the top down to be the same height as the top shelf of the wall unit. You'll see this in later photos. I figured it would be a good unit for bowls and some odd shaped stuff.

Here it is again stained up:

The goal of this little unit was to hide all the light from the window and add some character and display space to the area behind where the bar will be. I also specifically kept my design in mind to showpiece a rare Frank Schirman Velvet that I have along with a few of his Black Coral pieces.

I want to have the velvet painting in the center of the cabinet with small, half-round shelves either side of it. Only a few, not too crowd the main piece. As a backing for the velvet, I am using real Tapa Cloth from Fiji.
In the upper outside left and right sections, I will have glass shelves with a mirror backing to help add depth and maybe help make the room look a little bigger as well as bounce around some light. Down below, I will have glass shelves where the cabinet doors go all with a dark backing which you will not notice once this unit is loaded up.

This is the top half of the unit removed from the bottom to make it easier to work on:

Next is some of the Tapa Cloth being added:

I couldn't find my big piece of this style so I will be cutting up some of the pieces I have and making a pattern around the space that I want. The center does not have to have any Tapa as the velvet will be covering this blank space. Yes, it would have been better to use a bigger piece but I couldn't find the piece I had in time. This way did give it kind of a cool pattern and made it a bit more decorative though.

Here is the center section finished up:

Here's the whole cabinet again:

To add another texture and material to the room, I decided to go with a dried banana leaf to use for the roof. I had also not seen these used to commonly so thought it would be different. It adds another color and another example of all the different types of materials you would have found in some of the old Polynesian Restaurants. This was imported right from Bali.

The banana leaf is folded over a piece of split bamboo and then the next piece is added then laid on top folded over and continued down the section. They are then tied to the bamboo. They came in pieces about 14" by about 30" wide and are perfect for roofs or ceilings!

Here's the cabinet with the banana leaf roof on:

In this shot, I have not yet cut the leaf to the exact length of hang over yet so it may seem to hang over too much at the top. You can also just make out some of the strips of rope lighting that will be going in under some of the shelves and under the banana leaf. Also, the corner shelf has been cut down away from the ceiling.

That's it for tonight. More to come!!
Mahalo, TabooDan