Add Some Tiki Style to Your Summer
Even the landlocked can infuse their home or yard with some South Pacific island flavor
Ever since Westerners caught wind of Captain Cook’s adventures in the South Pacific and then, a century later, laid eyes on Paul Gauguin’s colorful symbolist paintings of Tahitian life, they’ve had a fascination with the idyllic paradises on the other side of the Earth. Travelers to the region ship home souvenirs of Polynesia’s rich wood-carving tradition and dreamers who’ve never been long for their own slice of these far-flung fantasylands. Tropical hardwoods and hand-carved tikis are hard to come by in the States, but there are plenty of other ways to infuse your home with tiki style, on any budget.
Here’s a photo submitted by a Houzz user whose clever spouse constructed his own tiki hut out of dead ash trees found on their property. Built on a sand pit with a real thatch roof imported from Mexico, this little cabana is a tropical dream come true for its Detroit homeowners.
Thatch roofs are beautiful and unique as outdoor canopy toppers, but be warned that they don’t last forever, even in tropical locales. You can expect to get three to five years out of a natural thatch roof. Synthetic alternatives exist and are usually warrantied for closer to 20 years.
Tiki Torches
Bamboo tiki torches may have originated in Polynesia, but, like most items we associate with tiki style, they’ve been appropriated and reinterpreted by Western consumers. Today you’ll find tiki torches, which have retained their cachet as a favorite lighting source for backyard barbecues, in the aisles of big-box home improvement stores.
Bamboo tiki torches may have originated in Polynesia, but, like most items we associate with tiki style, they’ve been appropriated and reinterpreted by Western consumers. Today you’ll find tiki torches, which have retained their cachet as a favorite lighting source for backyard barbecues, in the aisles of big-box home improvement stores.
Indoor Bamboo
For a more conventional and less thematic approach to incorporating the tiki look, opt for bamboo and exotic hardwoods. Bamboo counters and cabinets live harmoniously alongside the sleeker elements of this kitchen. Indeed, the earthy material is a fantastic way to reconcile a laid-back tropical vibe with a more staid city-slicker sensibility.
For a more conventional and less thematic approach to incorporating the tiki look, opt for bamboo and exotic hardwoods. Bamboo counters and cabinets live harmoniously alongside the sleeker elements of this kitchen. Indeed, the earthy material is a fantastic way to reconcile a laid-back tropical vibe with a more staid city-slicker sensibility.
Totems
While tiki culture as we know it is as authentic as Velveeta, tiki totems are the real deal. Indigenous islanders, including the large Maori population of New Zealand, carved elaborate humanoid features in cylindrical posts, commonly to immortalize an ancestor or mark a burial site. In this living room, marble mosaics bring two tiki figures to life.
While tiki culture as we know it is as authentic as Velveeta, tiki totems are the real deal. Indigenous islanders, including the large Maori population of New Zealand, carved elaborate humanoid features in cylindrical posts, commonly to immortalize an ancestor or mark a burial site. In this living room, marble mosaics bring two tiki figures to life.
Woven Woods
If your vision of tiki style includes lots of wood and decorative touches from Asia or Oceania, woven woods will surely be your window treatment of choice. They can be customized to fit just about any window, with the exception of arches, and on larger expanses they offer the same effect as a bamboo screen enclosing a patio. Most of all, they offer one more way to blur the boundaries between home and nature, as so many South Pacific homes do.
If your vision of tiki style includes lots of wood and decorative touches from Asia or Oceania, woven woods will surely be your window treatment of choice. They can be customized to fit just about any window, with the exception of arches, and on larger expanses they offer the same effect as a bamboo screen enclosing a patio. Most of all, they offer one more way to blur the boundaries between home and nature, as so many South Pacific homes do.
Grass Skirts
Growing up, I always coveted my best friend’s grass bedskirt. It looked like something a hula dancer would wear, and the flower leis on the bedposts only added to the effect. Here’s that same bedskirt, all grown up and sitting pretty in my own Dream Bedroom ideabook.
Growing up, I always coveted my best friend’s grass bedskirt. It looked like something a hula dancer would wear, and the flower leis on the bedposts only added to the effect. Here’s that same bedskirt, all grown up and sitting pretty in my own Dream Bedroom ideabook.
While you’re at it, go ahead and add a grass skirt as a valance.
Or use it as a sink skirt in a bohemian kitchen, bath or laundry room.
Tropical Hardwoods
Hardwoods will give you a beautiful, tropical look, but be aware that they also present an ecological dilemma as they’re less easily renewable than bamboo and exporting them creates a significant carbon footprint. Even teak, which is one of the relatively fast-growing hardwoods, takes 20 years to mature.
Hardwoods will give you a beautiful, tropical look, but be aware that they also present an ecological dilemma as they’re less easily renewable than bamboo and exporting them creates a significant carbon footprint. Even teak, which is one of the relatively fast-growing hardwoods, takes 20 years to mature.
With its hula-skirt newel posts and bamboo grass eco-resin panels, this custom staircase by Gauge Design Group is delightfully South Pacific and the epitome of tropical glamour.
Coconut Chic
Everybody knows that all the best tiki bars serve their concoctions in coconut shells. It follows that furniture and accessories made of coconut would be a fitting accoutrement to any tropical room. For a particularly unique riff on coconut as a textural layer, check out this extraordinary chandelier made of palm ash and coconut.
More
What Lies Beneath? A Tiki Bar Basement
10 Relaxing (Restrained) Themes for Outdoor Rooms
Everybody knows that all the best tiki bars serve their concoctions in coconut shells. It follows that furniture and accessories made of coconut would be a fitting accoutrement to any tropical room. For a particularly unique riff on coconut as a textural layer, check out this extraordinary chandelier made of palm ash and coconut.
More
What Lies Beneath? A Tiki Bar Basement
10 Relaxing (Restrained) Themes for Outdoor Rooms
Though forever associated with the South Pacific, tiki culture is largely a figment of one Hollywood man’s imagination. In the late 1930s, a movie set consultant who called himself Donn Beach opened a popular tiki-themed Hollywood nightclub that became popular with the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles, among others. Culturally accurate or not, his mai tai cocktails were a hit, and a new style obsession was born. The thatch hut is probably the most recognizable element of tiki style and is a brilliant addition to an outdoor living area.