A leopard skin rug for my home tiki bar — this is a tough search!

What’s a home tiki bar without a little bit of leopard skin (faux, of course) included? Yes, even though leopards did not prowl Oceanic locations, leopard skin upholstery became associated with tiki decor in the 1940s and 1950s. The likely culprit was Witco. For example, very famously, Elvis’ Jungle Room is full of animal-print covered Witco furniture, including a peek (<-hey Michael, ain’t ya proud of me?) of leopard. Leopard print was always the most popular tiki choice, though! Before I start showing you upholstery options for the sectional that will go into my Mahalo Lounge, it’s important to get grounded: I plan to have the main sitting area defined on a big leopard skin rug. So far, I have found two suitable options, although I’m still looking, because I’m not 100% satisfied these are “the best” I can do.

Above: The rug will anchor:

• The new wedge- (rounded corner) shaped sectional — upholstery TBD.
• Two vintage Barcelona chairs upholstered in caramel brown leather.
• A cherry Baker side table from the 1960s.
• A clear glass coffee table with black wrought iron legs — one of the first pieces I ever bought at a yard sale (in 1987) and which has been with me through six apartments or houses!

You’ve already seen the draperies — they need to coordinate with the rug as well.

Looking for a leopard print rug online

Leopard print inspiration from vintage Witco — see this story

Of course, the first thing that I did was to jump online to find a made-to-order leopard print rug that I liked. No luck: Many designs had bold edging, which I did not want. Others had iffy reviews, ala “they shed” or “the spots are much larger in real life than in the photos online” — and I did not want to order a large rug only to have to pay a large postage bill to return it. Finally, as you can see in my room layout, I think I’ll need a 10′ x 13′ rug. No one makes that size as a standard offering.

Find a wall-to-wall carpet — and bind it into an area rug

So then … I went looking for wall-to-wall carpet that I could have bound, to my custom size, into an area rug.

Golly, it was also tough to find examples of leopard print carpeting online. I think there may be too many companies, and maybe their search engines aren’t optimized or something.

But, based on a tip from reader X, I found a Karastan design that seemed possible… Then, I looked for a nearby dealer. That sent me on a trip to American Rug in Holyoke, Mass. I brought my fabric along — and as you can see from my photo shoot above, there were plenty of options to play with. I could also see: a leopard print area rug is going to look fantastic with the draperies!

In my fun hour at American Rug,we pulled out all these boards and I eyeballed them versus the drapery fabric. I was looking for color and for scale. I wanted the leopard spots to be black, and I wanted a creamy or golden field. The scales that were too smaller/tighter did not appeal to me as much as the larger-scale designs given, I think the size of the furniture that would be sitting on the carpet and also the scale of the graphics on the draperies. I wanted to see those leopard spots!

The Masland Leopard in Big Cat

I came home with three sample boards, and two of them are finalists, shown above:

• Astro quickly showed his preference for the Kane Kaplani in the Nimble Lynx design, which was softer. I like this design because of all the gold in the field — it ties nicely to the gold in the draperies and the natural red oak floor. Downsides: (1) the repeat is not as large as the other choice; (1) it’s some sort of manmade fiber [seriously, what the heck is “Eurolon”], although on that you could argue it likely cleans up easily. Tiki parties can get messy. Finally,it’s about 30% less expensive than the next option…
• Masland Carpet’s “Leopard” in the “Big Cat” colorway. This one is 100% wool, which we like the idea of. Downside: The field is more ivory than gold; as I recall, the spots are not as defiantly black; and, it’s more expensive – although not prohibitively so.

Oh: Above you can get a sense of how my new sectional will be positioned. We have a vintage sectional downstairs — and we hauled it upstairs to play ensure our idea for a sectional in the tiki space will work. It does. We will be having a new sectional made mimicking the dimensions of this vintage design.

Now I welcome your opinions!:

Which design should I go for:
The bold gold-and-black polyester from Kane?
Or the less edgey but real wool from Masland?
Or: Can anyone find me more options?

• Read all my stories about my Mahalo Lounge project here.

Next up: Choosing sectional upholstery that will look good with the rug and the draperies.

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