Home tiki bar flooring can be a tough issue to sort out if your goal is to combine form (beauty) and function (easy to clean). In a home tiki bar, you want to optimize every inch inch of space possible to create your escapist mood. Yet, you still need to be realistic about possible messy spills. Photo above: Flor.
For most any room, I love patterned rugs because they provide the opportunity to tie the colors in your room together, and because they ground the space and provide “visual gravity.” Functionally speaking, rugs and carpeting also warm up a room — they are soft, cozy, inviting.
That said, gregarious cocktails and carpeting can make for trouble.
How to get the best of both worlds. Carpet tiles! If there’s a spill, you can just pull it the affected squares and clean them individually. Above: These leafy, dark green, moody “Palm Reader” carpet tiles from Flor look like they would make for wonderful home tiki bar flooring.
Home tiki bar flooring
Getting ready for my upcoming to talk at Arizona Tiki Oasis, I’ll be doing more deep-dive research and stories in coming weeks on various aspects of decor and design for a home tiki bar. Having flooring that makes it easy to clean up spills — resilient vinyl sheet or tile, ceramic, or wood, for examples — is surely a practical idea. Looking at images of the dining rooms in old Trader Vic’s restaurants (these interiors are some of my very favorites), though, I see they always had patterned carpets pretty similar in feel to the Flor carpet tiles shown above. In the bar area — maybe less likely so — I’m not sure.
- I put a thrift-store-purchased oriental rug in the main seating are of my home tiki bar, The Mahalo Lounge. So far so good — but then, in this particular space we are all sitting, with our drinks somewhat safely perched on a large coffee table. Actually, I’m more worried about spills on my precious custom-made midcentury modern sectional.
Hey, Carpet squares are a pet-friendly home carpeting idea, too. My miniature schnauzer Astro is getting older now — and, well, accidents happen.
Where to find this carpet tile and maybe others appropriate for home tiki bar flooring:
- Palm Reader in Kale — from Flor.
- Flor maintenance info.
linoleummy says
Ooo…lush…I can see it on a wall…
Julie says
Love the carpet tiles but where did you get that great buffet?!? Please share your sources – Thanks, Julie
Pam Kueber says
The photo is from Flor….
Julie says
Oh.. OK thanks!
Pam Kueber says
I’ll guess: Drexel!
DJ Sparkles says
I am so in love with the “Palm Reader” carpet tiles! This might be a good selection for our music room. I want wood in the rest of the house, but with drums, piano, band practice, kazoos (don’t judge), carpet is best. The stupid ivory carpet that came with the house (sadly new, so we didn’t feel right about dumping it right away), is more leopard now. A home movie for a friend’s 50th broke it in. The two actors clinked beers in a “cheers” movement, and the bottles broke! Everyone looked at me in horror, worried about what they had just done to our then-pristine ivory carpet, but my only concern was “Did we get that on camera?!!! (We did, and it was awesome!) The carpet has only gotten worse since then, and the Palm carpet tiles might be a practical and stylish replacement!
Betsy in Michigan says
Just an FYI: The condo I rent out still has ivory carpet in the bathroom! (haven’t gotten around to replacing it). I surprised myself, as I had nothing to lose, when I took a rag with straight up bleach on it (making sure I didn’t splash any on good clothing and had good ventilation) and SCRUBBED the stains. It was like magic! Might be worth a try in the interim if you’re considering something new, anyway!
Betsy in Michigan says
RL McFarland – they are about an 1/8 of an inch thick, carpeting on a stiff but flexible rubber-type backing; too firm for any “lifting”. When you need to get them wet/hand scrub them, they still remain stiff. I got a round of samples on 2 different occasions (on sale!) before I committed.
RL McFarland says
Betsy – Thanks so much! First I want to try one of the faded Oriental patterns.
Betsy in Michigan says
Re; FLOR (which we love in alternating squares of orange, black, red and turquoise!). If you;re willing to wait, sign up for their emails to get a sale. I had my rug planned for a couple years before I jumped on a bargain (and them, wouldn’t you know, it was 2 or more years before a cat barfed on a square! But so easy to really get clean afterwards).
Pam Kueber says
Kate is a big fan, too, I think!
Phyllis says
When we replaced our carpet in the living room (600 sq feet) I just bit the bullet and use a Roomba programmed to run three times a week. We also get the carpet professionally cleaned every two years. I’m not necessarily recommending professional cleaning and I totally salute and respect anyone who cleans their own carpet; I just really dislike doing it lol. A Roomba works really well for keeping surface dust off carpet fibers and even if there is a spill it’s easier to clean because the spill doesn’t mix with surface dirt.
Midge Brock says
As another option, I like the idea of those washable rugs that I keep seeing ads for (“Ruggables”) . Not horribly expensive as far as rugs go, and you can wash even the large ones in an average washing machine.
Allison says
I looked at those; great idea but no mid century designs or colors that I could see 🙁
Oh, and Pam… a great solution for those tiki cocktail party spills on upholstery or rugs is the Spot Bot by Bissell. I love mine and use it often.
Pam Kueber says
My husband recently researched and bought a real carpet scrubber — I’ll have to get the brand and write about it. He really loves it! He’s used it on all our rugs and the carpets and they look so much better!
Thanks for the tip on the Spot Bot, I’ll check that out too!
RL McFarland says
Allison – did you look at all 256 versions? There are a number of patterns that (at least in my mind) are Mid-Century compatible.
The question I have is how well the perimeters “stay down” as the rug portion (not the pad) appear fairly thin and I am wondering if with time and washing they tend to lift a bit around the edge?
Well priced.