Post #720873 by matt-tiki-teo on Tue, Jun 24, 2014 7:35 AM

Thanks for all the comments! I wish I had taken more "before" and "in-progress" pictures now but wasn't sure that it would be worthy of posting in the end. Some of the more time-consuming projects were the bamboo curtain, roof, and wall carving.

The doorway was arched on the top and all the bamboo curtains out there are mounted to a flat frame. Had to buy a curtain, clip off each bamboo string, and re-hang it with an eye hook:

There were a lot of great ideas on here for what to do with the roof. Bamboo Ben had posted some photos of a palm thatch ceiling with bamboo pole cross beams that looked pretty cool so I had to try it. Started by screwing some wood furring strips lengthwise across the room into the ceiling studs at about 2' intervals. The palm thatching was stapled into these. Then torched and attached 1" bamboo poles along the strips with the palm thatching. Torched some 2" bamboo poles and attached them crosswise with a screw at each crossing. Then added some rope "ties" that end up hiding the screws.

The wood carving probably took the most time since I am not experienced with a router:

Standard pine board from the hardware store with patterns sketched on. Major cuts by a fixed-depth router. Fine touches and sanding with a Dremmel. Torched and wire brushed. Then stained and applied two coats of polyurethane. I'll have to say some of the carvers on here make this look a lot easier than it is. My hats off to them!