Post #539227 by TabooDan on Sat, Jun 26, 2010 10:59 PM

Hey Ashman, thanks for the kind words! It sure helps keeping me going!!

Just so I can continue showing the room in a way you can see the progression, here's a few shots of the rest of the side of the room where the bench is going opposite the wall cabinet.

This is an earlier photo of that side of the room:

As I completed the building and woodworking on the bench, I pre-painted the walls so they are ready for the bamboo as well. Here's the bench pre-bamboo:

As I worked on finishing up the bamboo on the bench, I continued the bamboo along the side of the wall, between the wall cabinet and the bench. Here's the bench completed with bamboo and starting on the walls:

At the same time, I was dry fitting my wood trim that will run along the top of the bench and tie into the corner where the Tiki Pole will rest.

Here's one showing the bamboo going up:

The wall between the two now covered in bamboo:

You can see a receptacle on the right side. When I mounted the bamboo to the wall, I cut out bamboo straight around the outlet by about 3/4". I didn't want the outlet to be a recessed but rather flush with the bamboo. The bamboo is pretty much uneven and sticks out about 1/2" to about 3/4" from the wall. I also didn't want to have to cut the bamboo at different lengths or notch too much of it out.

To make the outlet even with the bamboo and easy to deal with, I basically cut a piece of wood about 3/4" bigger than an electrical box. I then cut a hole out that matched the size of the inside of standard outlet box. It didn't have to be a perfect cut because a cover plate goes over the cutout area anyway. I made sure I had the right size cut out by using an extension device which is what you would use if you were extending your boxes to install ceramic tile. This is also good to use as it extends the box past the wood so we don't have to worry about any electrical or fire hazards.

Here it is with the metal extension in place:

All I gotta do is mount it and put on a cover plate and it's all done.

Once that's done I will mount some wood trim and dark bamboo on the wall to cover the seams in the matting and accents.

Two shots of the wall again:

This is the corner over the bench that will be home to a cool Tiki Pole I got from Leroy at Oceanic Arts a few years ago. I'll have Tapa Cloth behind the Pole with bamboo trim.

Also in the above shot, you can see the hole in the wall on the right. I'll make a frame for this and have a feature velvet painting in the wall that will have lighting as well. I'm hoping to make this corner look a little like a Trader Vic meets the Waldorf Hotel with the recessed velvet and all!! Hopefully I can do both these great places a little justice!

TabooDan

[ Edited by: TabooDan 2010-06-26 23:03 ]