Post #674823 by tigertail777 on Thu, Apr 18, 2013 10:01 PM

Thanks for asking about the status Wendy. :) I was going to update a few days ago but wanted to wait till I had more pics of what little there has been done.

Okay I take that back a lot has been done, it just feels like I am spinning my wheels because it is not going fast enough to suit me and I feel like I keep getting blocked at every turn. Must keep telling myself that Rome was not built in a day.

So the main progress that has been made is we have the electrical conduit laid and buried, and a lot of the electric boxes set up waiting for my Uncle to be able to take time out of his busy schedule to do all the proper hook ups and final stuff.

As for the decor, I nixed the black velvet and the tiger fur under the bamboo. Felt like it was just too much and left it bare wood. The place where the burlap is frayed and meets the edges I am toying with either using more bamboo, or getting wood slats as I said before and eventually carving tapa designs into them. I found more vintage Hawaiian fabric on ebay I liked, and am also in the process of ordering some from Sophistatiki (Dawn) from her Spoonflower site. And I found a few things also on ebay that I got good deals on that I am excited to put into the Tiki Tiger studio which I will show below.

First up: my brother in law, Mike helping dig the trench for laying the electrical conduit (it had to be 2 feet deep all the way). I helped dig too and had a pretty major asthma attack to the point of almost hallucinating. Had to have a lot of protein and sugar and cold water to get the attack calmed down and stop the dizziness. Our soil after the first foot or so is nearly pure clay and harder than heck to dig through. I learned that the hard way.

And my dad also digging (he did a large majority of the initial digging).

And the electrical box, it might be replaced with something smaller but we are not sure till my uncle comes out to look at it. I sure as heck am going to decorate that ugly box somehow it sticks out like a sore thumb.

More electrical wire running willy nilly along the beams. This one will end in a plug in for the overhead fluorescent lights, so it pretty near them.

This is the electrical conduit pipe going up from the ground and inside the building. Ugly as sin and will be covered by a tiki or something in the future.

Little hard to make out, but you can tell I got rid of the black velvet here and finally started putting on all of the end bamboo pieces.

Got the new Hawaiian fabric yesterday and starting putting some on today. (Thanks Mike for the suggestion of using more than one pattern I think it looks better that way too).

Close up of the fabric. Once I took pics I realized I installed it backwards to how I wanted it, but it was such a tight fit I am not doing it again.

I was a little sad that this small piece of fabric was all I could find of this pattern. I LOVE this pattern, I have always liked volcano imagery and it looks fantastic with that black tapa design. I have it cut but not installed yet I lost the sunlight before I could get it done.

I also covered the inside of the door with more of the pineapple fabric. I will be putting bamboo around the edges of the door to frame it and hold the cloth down. This will be the backdrop for one of the movie posters below which will hang on the inside of the door.
Before the fabric:

And after:

I found these vintage laminated placemats on ebay, they are very much like the burlap weave but have thin Koa wood design cutouts under the lamination. I had a brain flash when I saw them on ebay, and got very excited about it. Very happy I won them there are 25 in all plenty to play with though I will have to cut them a little to fit, which I feel a little bad about but they are damaged and brittle so I don't think they could be used for actual placemats anymore. They say "Waikiki Weave on the backs of them, and I would estimate they are from the 60's from the look of them.



I thought they would look really nice as a kind of runner along the tops of the wall once they are cut to fit (only cutting the burlap looking cloth parts not the Koa wood).


Finally, I got these two ORIGINAL movie posters which are 27X41 inches big each, and I gotta find frames for:

I could not resist this one. Too perfect for my Tiki Tiger studio. :)

Probably going to get metal frames with UV glass and then cover the metal with bamboo pieces. Hope I can find some decently cheap ones.
So now you are caught up on the progress of Tiki Tiger Studios. Hopefully by the next time I post there will be electricity and LIGHTS. :)