Home The Tikiteria..........

[Johnny Tsunami]

Maybe its just me, but there's just something a little creepy about having the same cabinets in your kitchen as you do the bathroom. It just feels like cross contamination or something. I dunno, just weird. lol.
Anyway, here we are in the kitchen and as you can see, its more of the same, a virtual cornucopia of particle board, Formica, plastic, and vinyl, all accented with the timeless color palette of Harvest Gold.
Sometimes you just have to cut the cancer out. So we eliminated every hint of the old kitchen completely.
We gutted the floor down to the joists, did some structural adjustments, knocked out half a closet, and basically started from scratch.

There were two large closets separating the kitchen from the living room. We removed half of the left closet to open up the dark kitchen, with the light from the bow window in the living room. It immediately had a dramatic impact, by adding large amounts of open space and light. We then installed an new subfloor to prepare for some very special vinyl flooring.

 

[Johnny Tsunami]

The flooring we chose was, Tarkett Fiber Floor. The vinyl is like 3 times as thick as normal quality vinyl. Its cushiony when you walk on it. The design we chose was seagrass, which looks exactly like straw matting. When you run your hands over the flooring, its actually embossed to feel like actual reeds of straw. Its durable enough, that if you use Tarketts low tack adhesive, and you end up getting water damage, you can actually lift the flooring up, dry out the subfloor and then lay the vinyl back down with a new application of adhesive. Water may soak into your subfloor, but it will not damage the vinyl. Great stuff and an amazing look.

Trying to buy bamboo cabinets, locally in Indiana, is like trying to talk to the carny, who runs the tilt-a-whirl, about the latest advances in microbiology. There was only a couple of places that could get their hands on it, but they didnt have anyone that could install it, plus the price was triple of what it would be on the coast. After much disappointment, we ended up finding something called, Crosscut, quarter sawn, oak. The only pieces that resembled normal oak were the end caps. The doors and frames had an amazing linear look that adds the feel of bamboo, but was actually of a lot warmer shade of wood than the lighter color of most regular bamboo, or the darkness of chocolate bamboo. It was the perfect balance, at a great price, that really tied things together.

We then added a hammered, copper, range hood.....

A wifi, color changing ceiling light, with speakers, and bamboo tube, drop lighting......

and a bamboo ceiling fan.

 

[Johnny Tsunami]

To accent the room we chose, oil rubbed bronze hardware with a bamboo leaf design and cast iron floor vents with a similar look.


When we took out half of the closet, we had to keep a structural, support post intact. We drywalled it up and we were going to paint it, but I was really craving for something with more impact since that's where your focus goes when you walk in the front door. I started digging into the internet and about a day later I came across the website for Bosko Hrnjak. If you know tiki, you know the name, if not, duck duck go it. (google is evil)
I got in contact with him and he carved us 4 panels to encase the support beam. Stunning does not begin to describe the look.

We got creative with the limited space we had, so we decided to go with a dining counter, instead of a kitchen table. We added another bank of cabinets to the backside of the stove and reinforced it with structural angle iron. Found some out of this world, bamboo dinning chairs from an importer in N.Y, added a quartz, undermount sink, and then covered everything in one of the most insane countertops Ive every seen. Its called Dekton. Its a combination of quartz, glass, and porcelain. You can actually take your food out of the fridge, cut it up, and prepare it, right on the countertop, cook it with a blowtorch, eat it, and clean it up with a rag and you would never know it had been touched. The only drawback of this, is that the surface it so hard and non porous, it will damage your knives, and you will never see a scratch or mark on the counter. This stuff is off the hook and it looks beautiful in the room.

 

[Johnny Tsunami]

In a nifty case of now you see it, now you dont. We bought a front loading washer and dryer, kept them in the same place the old ones were, and now they had a counter over the top of them for folding. We put a tasty little piece of carved bamboo trim in between them, added 5 steel plates on the counter support above them, then took a roll of wainscoted, chocolate bamboo, placed heavy duty magnets, at the needed locations, along one edge and presto, changeo, the washer and dryer mysteriously disappear into the tiki atmosphere. Poof!

Put it all together, adjust the lighting, and you have an intoxicating space for social gatherings, light noshing, and exquisite food preparation, that kicks the previous space of harvest gold, Formica, and plastic into a mid century grave where it belongs. So long old friend, you have served us well,........Helloooooooo sexy.........


Next up........... THE uraniYUM ROOM......

 

[Tiki Dude]

amazing!

looking great!