Post #761520 by AdOrAdam on Sun, Mar 27, 2016 9:19 AM

Latest stage: build

The first thing I did was paint everything dark brown with cheap paint. I did this for 2 reasons:

• There would be no chance of 'white' could show through in corners, around mouldings, etc
• Painting everything dark was in contrast to the rest of the house & symbolically marked the area as 'this is now tiki room'
• Jo (maybe rightly so) had mentioned a few times 'I hope it's not too dark' ~ the only way from here was lighter!

I just went for all over dark (if a little patchy). I did coat some areas a few times that would be uncovered. I masked the white UPVC window frame up - it got painted the same colour. I brought some white blackout material for the external door curtain & painted that too.

I tacked some wooden shelf supports to the wall with small nails & stained them while drips wouldn't matter. I predrilled holes in the wall for the shelves & the radiator cover too - I was pretty sure drilling thought rattan wouldn't be a problem but at least then it was another job out of the way.

With the exception of the drilling, this was nice easy work I could do at times when Rosie was having a nap or in bed for the night without disturbing her. Jo occasionally stuck her head round the door & made comments about it looking dark.

I've got to say, I really intended to post progress photos of the build but we really got stuck in & rushed through it at a lightening speed. I did contribute some tapa cloth tips to another thread.

Jo really came to my aid spending the majority of a weekend helping me stick matting on the walls, cut & attach trim. Jo's brother Steven (known as Uncle Debben) helped with lots of bits including sticking the rattan to the ceiling & attaching higher up trim.

There's not too many rules to sticking matting to the walls but I think I can summarise what I learnt in a few tips:

• nothing is ever straight so cut the matting a little to big & trim it on the walls
• when you cut the edges of the matting keep the small off cut bits that are too long to weave them in to the sections where it is too short
• use plenty of spray adhesive
• using a paint roller to press an area down works well
• having 2 people working on it together makes it a lot easier
• if you can have an empty room to work in, it'll go easier (we didn't & were forever moving stuff around)
• the thicker matting really is more difficult to use (I like the texture it adds but would even go so far as to avoid using it if I was doing another tiki room in the future)
• trim makes all the difference
• tapa cloth is well worth it for the rich feeling it adds

Here's a few photos I took during the process:

Here is where I posted the method I used to stick up the tapa cloth.

Rosie (now a fair bit bigger than the previous photo & walking around everywhere) was always keen to help / interfere & was barricaded out:

Eventually we brought some cheap plastic tools & she came on in - unsurprisingly she banged the walls a lot & tried to pull on the matting. I took the view that it was going to happen so it was better she was used to it being there - it held up well & she paid it little attention after a day or so.

NB: I wrote all these posts a while ago but never got round to making them. The room is now empty apart from its eventual furniture, full rattaned & trimmed.

The next stage is probably the most exciting, it's deciding what goes where & the lighting. At the moment the room looks like most tiki rooms do underneath all the decoration.

Having spent a fair amount of money & time recently, I'm going to take a little bit longer with this & will report back when I have more pictures.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the inspirations, pictures I've posted & space that we have.

Cheers!