Post #44618 by TikiTex on Sat, Jul 26, 2003 12:16 AM

Just joined the forum after weeks of perusing the posts and getting a feel for the place. You guys are a wealth of information!

I'm new to tiki in the sense that my interest was renewed just a few years ago, but I'm old enough to remember its last original glory days of the '60s. As a kid, my mom (taking her cue from my aunt, who is from Hawaii) decorated our house with beautiful teak furniture and tropical fabrics, and the back yard with tiki torches, a koi pond, butterfly chairs, tropical plants, banana trees and a plethora of bamboo accessories. I was one lucky kid.

It was inevitable that those times would creep back into my consciousness 30 years hence, and sure enough, in the mid-'90s I started acquiring Polynesian-inspired goodies of my own. Then I discovered the internet and realized how many other folks were on the same wavelength. What a great thing.

I'm working on a tiki room. My husband's a carpenter, so we're building our own tiki room/bar. This will entail our moving out of the master bedroom and into a smaller room in the back of the house and cutting a huge hunk out of an exterior wall to make room for a sliding glass door opening onto the lanai, but priorities are priorities.

As a renowned Parrothead, my kitchen and office are decked out in Caribbean, which is well and good, as long as it is kept apart from my tiki world. Les Baxter, Esquivel and Martin Denny rule the house from the hallway on back. :)

Ok, that's enough from this newbie. I just wanted to say hi from sunny and beautiful - but tiki-challenged - south Texas, and tell you how much I'm enjoying TC.

Mahalo for listening.

TTex