Tiki Hut!

I've been busy working on some small (and some not so small) projects this spring. Building a tiki hut has been near the top of the rancho indebto to-do list for a couple of months. Seriously. As the weather started getting warmer, the tiki hut project moved to proyecto gigantesco del número uno. Once the tiki hut passed mere conjecture (and pencil sketch phase), I downloaded google's SketchUp 3D modeling program. After a bit of poking and prodding, I produced a suitable model with SketchUp.

It took a good bit of time to decide which materials to use. Well, lets make that the exact materials ... I knew that it would involve bamboo and thatch. The initial plan was to build the entire tiki hut structure from bamboo. But I shelved that plan once the bamboo poles began splitting in the intense heat of our west-facing deck.

Eventually, I chose to use 4x4 cedar for the posts and 2x2 cedar for the roof frame. But I didn't abandon the bamboo entirely ... it's still a vital part of the structure, but it's not part of the framing.

Here's a shot of the northwest corner ...

That's Sweetshoot bamboo (Phyllostachys dulcis) obscuring the construction details.