WooHoo Bamboo!!!

Studio Update (again!):

Today I am trying yet a *different* methodology. I am blogging from my Netbook which has a teeny little keyboard (which is maddening for my Fat Fingers!). I may blog here, then go back and edit on my laptop! Any spelling errors *will* be attributed to fat-fingering!!!

Soooo... Good Neighbor, Brian, originally re-did my texturing on the walls of the shed. And he did a FANTASTIC job! I paid him for it - of course - and he insisted that I had overpaid him (for doing Double-Work? Scraping off someone else's crap and starting from scratch?!), so he told me he'd put up my door-frame - Gratis - whenever I was ready.

In the meantime, I'd gotten all Artsy Fartsy on the walls. Then - Oh Irony! - I ended up covering up 80% of his "Professional" texture job with woven palm mats and reed fencing! Gotta love it!

Anyway, he caught me in the front yard last week and reminded me that he was willing to put-up my door frame and I did the "Ummm... Errrr... There's been a change in plans" routine. I told him that I decided to skip the "proper" door-frame and wanted to go with bamboo instead. "And, actually, I've made a lot of changes to the walls and I really could use some ideas and your professional opinion/suggestions on what to do next! Wanna come see?"

"Sure!"

And we trudged over to my backyard. He walked in and immediately yelled "Holy Sh*t!!"

My knee-jerk reaction was "Oh NO! What's wrong?!" (or else "He's pissed that I covered up his texture job" or whatevers!).

"Nothing's WRONG" he replied "This is f*ckin' AWESOME!!!"

And I smiled.

"Seriously! It's like you're in the f*ckin' Caribbean or somethin'! Did YOU do this?!"

And I smiled even bigger.

So I showed him the bamboo slats and told him I wanted to use them for the door-frame and chair-rails and baseboards. Then I showed him the windowsills where I had "wrapped" the palm mat around the edges, but - in spots - I had cut it too short, and - in the corners - the mat didn't cover fully. "Is there some way we can disguise the raw edges using bamboo?"

So - long story short - Brian said he was up for the task. He came over (with his power-tools YAY!) the last 2 nights, after work, and did a fan-freaking-tastic job of "finishing" the shed with the bamboo slats.

At first, he was freaking out because the slats were thinner/thicker in spots (Hell-OH? It's Bamboo?!) and things weren't matching up perfectly. I kept reminding him "It's a Tiki Shack!"

And, as Tiki Shacks go, this one is pretty damned cool!!!

Chair rail -getting installed near the back (beach) wall.

Bamboo chair rails - getting installed.

And you can see how the "raw edges" of the palm mat in the windowsill are kinda "problematic."

Brian's Most Brilliant Idea for covering up the raw edges of the Palm Matting!

Freaking awesome!!!

Kiln corner and A/C unit (I need to get a longer hose for the A/C) -

and I need to decide what kinda Artsy-Fartsy sh*t I'm gonna do on the wall

(since I don't want to tack "combustibles" on this particular wall!)

Finished corner

Same corner, showing baseboards and flooring

Okay! So things are nearing completion! Next: I've decided to stick with the "open-air beach-side bar" theme. I'm going to paint the sky on the front wall on the "triangle" above the palm matting.

For the ceiling: I originally thought I was gonna put reed-fencing up there, or else a faux-bamboo paint treatment, but I decided that might "darken" things too much in there. Instead, I am gonna stick with the plain white ceiling and, instead, staple some cheesy fake fishnet (with seashells and assorted Tropical Tchotchkes woven throughout) to the ceiling. Everywhere *except* directly above the kiln (kiln+combustibles, ya know?!).

For the kiln wall: I think I'm gonna stick with some sorta Artsy-Fartsy paint treatment. Maybe continue the beach and the sky, and add some Tropical Plants and/or small Tikis painted on the wall... I need to hit HD again for some Green "Oops" paint (or else have some Custom Colors mixed up)...

"Almost There!" (she says for the jillionth time!!!)