Post #591422 by markmywords on Mon, May 30, 2011 10:25 PM

Hey all, here's the latest progress...

So, my idea for windows coverings was to copy the ones thay have at Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room.
The construction is fairly simply - basically a bamboo frame with reed fencing.

It took me awhile to figure out how to the join the frame together. I finally decided on constructing a gluing jig to strap the frame into while the joints were glued and dried.

Constructing the frame was quite a bit harder than I had anticipated. I encountered a reoccurring problem - I have a heck of a time getting my mitered joints to match up angle-wise. That is, individually the miters themselves are fine (45 degree), it's just that when it comes time to put the frame together, it becomes apparent that the joints at each end of each piece of the frame are off in comparison to each other. I end up with one joint that works ok, but the other is pointing upwards or downwards and will not make a clean joint. I ended up having to cover this by using an adhesive filler to fill the gaps in the the joints.

After a lot of gluing and a little improvising to fix unexpected problems I had my frames. It was time to add lashings.


Again, this took a great deal longer than I had anticipated. After what seemed like an eternity (and several weekends, working a few hours at a time), it was finally time to join the frame to the reed backing.

And... voila! They're done!

The big reward on this project came when we had a guest over and the first thing she said upon entering the room was "Wow, those windows are just like Disneyland's!".

I've also added some new decorations and accents over the past couple of months -

New bird

New couch (and banister treatment)

New masks

New couch cover

not so new fountain

After countless requests from guests... I finally caved and got a puffer

...and he's on one of the remote controlled circuits I put in. It's nice to be able to push a button and have "Instant Tiki!" instead of having to scramble around plugging various features in.

According to a Hawaiian friend of mine, it is extremely bad luck to have open mouthed tiki's inside one's home. She promptly provided some Hawaiian salt to rectify the situation (in an attractive lauhala box, too).

The grand opening of the Walls of Voodoo is in just a couple of weeks (June 11th). I'm hoping to finish putting up more decorations on the walls. I'll be working on a simple rain effect that will go behind the window coverings I just put up. If all goes well, I'm hoping to get a shelf up along the top of one of the walls for mugs. Also, I'd like to install reflective sheet metal inside to the tiki pole support columns to shoot more light up the front of the tiki poles.

Not much time left, so I've got my work cut out for me...

mahalo,
-mark

[ Edited by: markmywords 2011-05-30 22:32 ]

[ Edited by: markmywords 2011-05-30 22:43 ]

[ Edited by: markmywords 2011-05-31 00:01 ]

[ Edited by: markmywords 2011-05-31 07:49 ]