By this point in my build, it was late spring/early summer and I had to do something about the white ceiling. Because my space is outdoors, I did not have confidence lauhala matting would prove durable. Our summers have high humidity and insects and spiders would quickly claim the crevices and folds... I needed something easy to keep clean that wouldn't need replacing every few years. So this is where Southern tradition comes in. Travel around the South, and you'll see the ceilings of many porches painted "haint blue" which supposedly discourages insects from taking up residence. I thought, why not adapt this for my tiki needs?
First, I pressure washed the ceiling. There was a crazy amount of dust and dirt caked up there from years of neglect. Once it dried, I got to painting. The blue I selected was much bolder and darker than haint blue, but suitable for a tropical lagoon. Especially if one wanted to project the illusion that we're actually under water.
I have to say, there are many advantages to having 9 foot ceilings, but painting them is not easy on one's back.
To further the underwater illusion, I projected silhouettes of sea creatures onto the painted ceiling, outlined them with a Sharpie marker, then painted them in with a darker shade of blue.
Turns out that two coats of paint were necessary for both the blue water and the darker silhouettes.
The sea turtle was the first I painted and convinced me this idea would work. I'm still really happy with the way it turned out.
Alas, not every great idea turns out. I've had plenty of failures and blind alleys. Case in point: Caustic ripples. To further the underwater effect, I hit upon the idea of painting refracted sunlight ripple effect on the ceiling. I got a lighter shade of blue and went to work. Guess what? It looked like crappy seaweed. I started out using printed photos as a visual reference. When that didn't work, I used the projector to shine ripples onto the ceiling, then tracing over them. Guess what? That didn't work, either. I eventually admitted defeat and painted over this folly.
Side note: When we first got the idea for painting the underwater seascape, we reached out to local artists to see if we could hire them to do so. None of them wanted to touch the project. The one that considered it quoted us a price for several thousand dollars. I ended up completing it myself for the cost of a couple cans of paint and a feeling of personal accomplishment.
One downside of having a bright blue ceiling was that the old ceiling fans in place that we'd previously assumed were white were now revealed to be dirty, old and yellowed from years of UV exposure. They were seriously nasty looking, so for our anniversary The Wife gifted me a pair of new fans, outdoor rated and much more tropical.
As a bonus, these fans came with lights. This was a much-needed addition, because previously the only lights on the patio were the wall sconces, and they put out a wholly inadequate amount of illumination, even for a tiki bar. Alas, the lights on the new fans were decidedly untiki, so I had to figure out a way to rectify that shortfall in the future. But clearly, the new fans were a vast improvement over the previous ones, don't you think?
