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.
Daniel J ODay says
One of my mom’s pinochle friends tried the Tiki thing in her basement. Her floor solution was to spread sand all over the concrete! She also had stuffed monkeys hanging from the beams. Mom said she was forever experimenting with god-awful neon colored tropical cocktails. Call her Tondelayo!
Tracy says
I had to look at this advertising…. I OWN THAT EXACT DRESSER made in 1968 and a part of our family ever since. So cool to see in an ad…
Pam Kueber says
Very cool indeed!
Carla says
I dunno. Beautiful, but at $26/tile an 8×10 adds up to $780 plus whatever shipping costs accrue.
SebastianPDX says
Oooh, finally more posts about your Tiki lounge! Please, pictures! I thought you’d given up…or maybe your friends & family staged an intervention.
jc says
The pattern looks much bigger than the typical 12″ square carpet tile. How does that work?
Pam Kueber says
I think this is a Flor thing — the patterns are not necessarily meant to be repeats.
Allison says
Gosh, what a gorgeous moody look!
Restaurants and cocktail lounges back in the day (and still) used carpeting largely because of the noise dampening effect.
Young people may enjoy the rattle-clatter of hard surfaces and the ever increasing noise level at brightly lit clubs and bars, but that was never the aim at old-school dining and drinking establishment.
Cozy, lush, low-light elegance was how we rolled in the 60s.
This may or may not be the ambiance you want in your home tiki bar, so that would seem to be more of a factor to me than simple cleanability.
Tarquin says
Brilliant! I never put carpet tiles and spills in the same sentence. I always just assumed that carpet tiles were an inexpensive way to carpet. I love tiki, but it scares me. I think it’s a fortune if you want to do it correctly. When I walk into restaurants that have it, I see dollar signs. When I see it in homes, the good ones cost a fortune & the not so good ones (on a budget) look like a dorm room. They tried, but couldn’t. Pam, is it possible to create tiki decor that looks like a fortune, but done on a dime?
Karin says
These FLOR carpet tiles are gorgeous. The texture and colour would harmonize beautifully with a number of colourways. I would definitely consider them for my Tiki room. Thank you, and here’s to Tiki cheer in the middle of a bone-chilling February!
carolyn says
How does polypropylene measure up in terms of “feel” and durability indoors? Comments and reviews on different sites say this only lasts a season or two outdoors in the weather before it starts to shed or tear. And I fear it may feel slick or plastic-y like fake grass.
People may diss carpeting from the “olden” days but my carpeting from 1974 is silky in spite of being man-made fibers.
Pam Kueber says
For sure, I’d order a sample or sample tile before committing….
Vintigchik says
This has a very 1940s wall to wall carpet feel. We’re building a house soon that will be modeled after a midcentury post and beam style. I wanted something like this but without a totally 2019 feel. Lovely. Thanks for sharing, Pam.