would like input on ceiling and wall treatments for our lounge, please!

Hi all - here are some pics of the Zombie hut tiki lounge in our basement in Kenmore, just east of Seattle. We would love to do some treatments ( BacBac board or mat and/or bamboo ) on the ceiling and the wall to the west where the window and the Tiki mugs are. Any suggestions? and please, any west coast resources for materials.

I know its too much to hope that there might be something local in Seattle, but who knows? We were thinking BacBac on the ceiling and maybe painting the beams to look like tapa cloth or maybe bamboo - haven't decided.

Waddyatink?
Mahaloz,
Palapala/Lopaka

( Sorry about the slight fuzziness - pics were taken at night and its hard to get a lot of light into the room )

How tall are you?

I suspect they have a low ceiling like we do on our addition-totally not to code. Dunno if it was ok in the 70's when it was put on, but it's not 8 feet!

I'd do something to the background of the ceiling and paint those beams darker. You have the dang can lights like we do. I hate them. But Tikiskip told me how we can make them into tiki light fixtures-you take out the bulb, put in a screw-in socket for a plug (an adapter) then pulg in your new tiki lamp made from a basket or other material, fasten the lamp part into the inside of the fixture in the ceiling. But with a low ceiling it's going to be more challenging.

We've got fishnets over part of our ceiling with stuff hanging thru it and shells and postcards, drink umbrellas 'caught' up on it. You could always paint then fishnet/tapa it if you wanted. It kinda depends on how much you want to put into it. Just get lots of cool mood lightig so it doesn't feel like the ceiling is falling in on you!!!

:drink:
Tacky

the ceiling is 7 foot 3, and the exposed beams are about five and a quarter inches wide by about four and a half inches down, so we have room to do a flat treatment, but to have fishnet might be asking for an extra insurance waiver for strangulation accidents!

I live in Edmonds and there's a company in Seattle that sells sheets of woven bamboo veneer (1/32" thick) that will give you a great look without losing any noticeable room height.
Price is $20-24 per 4' x 8' sheet that you can adhere to the ceiling.

http://www.bamboohardwoods.com/items.asp?Cc=WOVEN&Bc=

I have low ceilings in my basement (7' 6") and am thinking of using some of this myself.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=28247&forum=18&start=30

[ Edited by: Mr. Pupu Pants 2009-01-14 10:58 ]

Thanx for the info Mr. pants,(or can I just call u PU Pu?)
lol...
we plan to go to Bamboo hardwoods next week..BTW, I'm trying to get an eastside o' seattle bar crawl going.. do you or anyone else you know want to be part of it?
Edmonds is'nt that far from Kenmore....how about some pic's of your place?

oooh! just saw the pic's you posted earlier.
you rock!

That's MR. Mr. Pants :)
Sure, some kind of bar crawl event would be a blast.

The second link on my earlier post (above) is actually a link to the posting for my basement Tiki bar 'project'. I was commiserating with you on the low ceiling :)

Here it is from page 1 (to page 5): http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=28247&forum=18&60

It's starting to come along but I still have quite a bit of work to do. I'm sure having alot of fun as I go. I love this site for sharing the info and the fun.
I hope you have a great time with yours. Aloha neighbor!

If u die, can i have your stuff?
write me in your will?
can I touch you and see if some of your talent rubs off?
seriously, we need to get together! show me yours and I'll show you mine!

I went to Bamboo hardwoods yesterday.
Saw the $20 a panel woven bamboo plywood.really pretty stuff!
since we are getting 30 panels, they were willing to cut the price to $18 each.
now I just have to pick them up on Thurs.
No shipping charges or waiting for delivery! YAY!
It will need to be applied with contact cement, and then framed arround the edges.

Fantastic! Which location did you go to? Downtown Seattle or the Eastside? Do you know if they have the same stuff at all locations?
Have fun! :)

If you want to get the sheets, you will need to get them at their warehouse, which is on 4th street in Seattle.
We saw it displayed at the Roosevelt sqare outlet where they have it on one of the walls.
really nice!

Everthing should be as white as possible. I believe "Ultra White" is the correct term.

Seriously, you've got some awesome stuff & once you warm that room up with some lauhala, bamboo & tapa it's gonna really blow us away. I like the one green wall. I think I'd leave that alone & use it to showcase some of your art. Keep the pics coming as I'm in the middle of a makeover & always looking for ideas to thieve!

Hay post pictures when ya get something going. I like the green too. It's soothing and cool.

I think I've found one solution to those butt-ugly resessed can lights in my basement... hand carved wooden trivets from India! 7 1/2 inches around, 3/8" deep, carved all the way through to let out a discreet ammount of light,very pretty asian type design, and only $8 each!
Check out Greeenheartshop.org, under; floral wood trivet!

These.

So how does that look? Can you show us a photo once you've installed it?

Yupper!
It should be coming some time next week.
with any luck, we should starting to install the woven bamboo ply
next week too!
I love the Idea of this trivet treatment.
It seems to cover all of my needs... less than an inch deep,exotic looking,simple and cheap!

Whee!
Big day! Progress on both our ceiling and tapa print projects. Went to Bamboo Hardwoods in Seattle and got 32 4'x 8' sheets of narrow weave bamboo ply. Got a screamin' good deal, too!
listed @ $24.00 a sheet, but sweet talked my way to $18.00 per. got some Moso 8' by 2" bamboo poles to split and use for trim above the wall that we are going to do tapa painting on.
hey, you know all that laminated foam board you got when you unpacked your latest electronics? it makes great stamps for a tapa pattern!
I came home and began to carve up some random bits.. Used an xacto, one sided razor blade. and heated up a metal awl to melt some of the pattern in. (You can get some great paint samples from Benjamin Moore - 2 oz. for $3.50 each).
We seem to be going with a primitive dog theme...I'm thinking of re-naming our lounge the "poi dog Paradise".
here's some pic's of my 1st stamps, and our Bamboo booty!
( this is also linked to Lopaka's spaces blog at http://rabosaurpapaya.spaces.live.com )

Very nice job on the stamps! :)
and it certainly looks like you're already having alot of fun--which is what it's all about. The process itself is the best part for me.

Do you know if those sheets of woven bamboo are stainable? I'm planning to use some of it to cover a section of ceiling in Hula Sue's and wondering how well it takes stain.

Aloha neighbor,
John

I checked, and if rubbing a sharpie type pen on the suface is any indication, I think so... it seemed to make a permanent mark.
I would talk to the folks @ bamboo hardwoods,however. their inventory seems to be a pretty fluid thing.
the stuff I originally ordered was not there in the quantity that I needed, so they offered me this stuff @ the same price they quoted me @ the Roosevelt store, which was their contractor price.. I think I got most of
what they had. they have other types of ply, and I bet you can negotiate price with them, too...places like this can't help but hurt in this economy, so give it a try..

BTW, I went out forraging for more stamp making material today, and it's almost impossible to find the laminated foam board, unless you are lucky enough get it rummaging through the trash, but I'm going to try cutting up some soft linking mats I found @ Lowe's. it has a fine basket weave pattern that might be just the thing for a Tapa-like backround...I'll let you know how it goes.

not liking the soft linking mat material.
too dense to make a good print.not very consistant.
oh well.
I think Howland was right about the camping mat.

You can buy the foam board in 20" x 30" sheets at Kelly Paper Company, 145 S. Horton St. #2, Seattle. Ask for Marianne, the store manager. It runs about $4.00 per sheet.

Just checked with Kelly...no joy, but thanks for trying to help.

another busy day. I feel like i finally perfected my tapa stamps. I used a thin camping mat, cut it to size, glued it to 4 x 6 blocks, burned out my patterns with a wood burning tool, and go to work.

I'm really pleased with our progress. Here's some pics of Lopaka and I makeing a mess :)

Also - the indian trivet came today. Really like the look of it, but not quite sure how to attach it to the ceiling. The woven bamboo mat started to go up today too, but we need a lineoleum roller to get it nice and flat with good attachment. More tomorrow.

here's the latest installment of progress on the Poi Dog Paradise. All the woven bamboo ply has gone up on the ceiling, and you can see how nicely it works with our tapa printing on the beams. We didn't much care for the trivet idea on the lights, too small, kind of clumsy looking, not enough light. But - I came up with the idea of these little Japanese paper parasols:

https://www.japanesegifts.com/product.php?id=214

Yep - they are just like drink umbrellas, only bigger. At about $4 each they're another real bargain in the creation of our lounge. We're going to figure out a way to attach them to the can lights, shouldn't be too difficult. We'll be putting up some bamboo trim around the matting next week.

really love the way that tapa stamp idea turned out.

Love the progress pics--thanks for sharing and keep em coming!

Really coming together nicely! The stamps are sweet! The parasols are great, we did the same over our light in my old house and it looked swell!

Here's the latest progress report on the Poi Dog Paradise project. the ceiling is just about finished with the exception of a few bits of trim here and there and our giant drink umbrella light covers.
The western facing wall below the window has been tapa stamped and trimmed out with a lot of beautiful bamboo.
The squares you see in the middle are going to be covered with some 3x3 squares of bamboo fencing. the stamps are just there underneath for texture since the fencing has a lot of gaps.
We're going to be putting up six different masks, one on every other square and they will be given glowing led light eyes; two of them which have moveable jaws will be outfitted with small motors so they can slowly open and close.

The next question: we want to make a volcano for the outside diorama that is visible from the windows. So far the suggestions have been paper mache, which I don't think will hold up outside even though its a protected area that doesn't
usuallly get wet; or styrofoam that can be covered with a lightweight concrete for texture.
We plan to put some type of a sullen flickering red light that can be seen from the top and I was thinking one of those fog maker thinggies that you find in cheesy table top fountains. we're looking at filling a 3 ft x 3ft x 3ft space with the volcano along with jungles, huts, virgin sacrifice, cannibal pot, etc. (Anyone know how to do a river of lava? )
Don't know where I'm going to find all this stuff, but I look forward to the hunt.
The whole area we're doing the diorama is about 6 feet wide, 3 feet tall , and 45 feet long. Lots of faux plants and such.

More next week.

Looking great! Here's an idea for your lava river but it's not cheap: check out the fireplace glass that's available. It's broken up colored glass, made of safety glass so it breaks into granules with no sharp edges. Lay out a river of it with volcanic rock on each side, bury some rope lights or strings of flickering Christmas lights if you want. Seems like the glass runs about $200 for 25 lbs.

Your tapa stamps turned out good, carving them with a hot tool instead of a knife is brilliant! My tiki space is an outdoor patio with 4x4 upright supports, I think they need stamped tapa designs :)

Blurring the fine line between art and crap.

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2009-02-13 16:03 ]

Cool idea,MDM!
hmmm would any broken safty glass Do?
I could hang out @ an auto body shop,(or look for car wrecks!)

Wow, that room is really coming along nicely :D Great work!

does anyone have any suggestions for what to do about using one of those ulrasonic mister foggers in a volcano mock up?
what size for a 3'x3 by about a 4'tall volcano?
I know some of them come with LED's, but they have blue lights in with them, and I want to keep it red and maybe yellow.we would be floating the mister in a 5 gallon bucket inside the structure.

Palapala, I bought one of those floating ultrasonic pond misters and was very disappointed with the fog output. I had the 1 head fogger, they also come with 3 and 7 head - they would put out more mist but cost a lot more.

wow how did I miss this thread before!!!! Most kick Ass job you guys, Id love to see how you did your stencil that's such a great idea!!!! especially for me, since I have been prohibited from using power tools by my GF without adult supervision and 911 on speed dial!!!
paul