Post #744925 by KonaKaiBaby on Mon, Jun 15, 2015 4:29 PM

Hi all. We're just in the beginning stages of building our home tiki lounge. My original plan was to cover all of the walls with matting. But my husband is concerned that this could be dangerous on the portions of the walls on either side of the wood stove. The matting wouldn't be behind the stove--that wall is tiled. The wall is 30" from the stove on the right side and 38" on the left. I know that's plenty of clearance for regular drywall, but I'm not sure about the matting.

I guess he's concerned about possible stray sparks. He was a stagehand for 23 years and has worked with all kinds of materials. He says that the flame-retardant matting isn't really going to prevent a fire and isn't a good idea anyway, because I'm very sensitive to chemicals and fumes, and it's a very enclosed space.

So, I thought perhaps we'd do faux stone veneer on those parts of the walls. However, I priced the veneer today, and it's definitely beyond our budget at this time. About 8-10x the cost of the matting for the same coverage.

So I'm feeling rather frustrated, and I'm wondering if anyone has experience using matting near wood stoves or fireplaces or has used alternative materials in a similar situation.

I attached the best pre-tiki pic I have of that part of the room, showing the stove & the distances to the walls.

Thanks so much for any advice! Much appreciated.
Tara