Post #778714 by tikitube on Wed, Aug 9, 2017 9:30 PM

A few more pictures...

Since we didn't decide on the tiki theme until we had already framed our addition, I realized too late that I would not have enough height to build the characteristic layered look of traditional tiki ceilings. I suspect that by the time you've got your matting and bamboo cross-members installed, you're dropping your ceiling height by at least 5 or 6 inches. Our ceiling is already low, but I was determined to find a way to add some layering without that much depth.

We settled on some lampac matting, which we mounted to thin luan plywood. You can see the white contact cement in this photo:

Again, I didn't like the light color of the raw material, so I then darkened it with a rub-on stain. I also sprayed it with some of that expensive fire retardant stuff, just in case:

Here is the first sheet installed on the ceiling. I just used deck screws with washers:

Then, we added a dark border around it, which also hides the screws:

And we installed diagonal bamboo fencing over that:

There will be a boxed edge around the bamboo that frames and divides it (visually) into sections. It also hides the metal pipe hangers that hold the bamboo in place, and will give me a recessed edge where I can tuck some LED rope lights. Overall, this drops the ceiling height by only about 2 inches, but still gives us the layered look we were wanting. :)

I'm also hoping to try my hand at carving some decorative pieces of trim to accent these boxed ceiling panels.

[ Edited by: tikitube 2017-08-09 21:33 ]

[ Edited by: tikitube 2019-07-07 14:26 ]