Check Out Strand Woven Tiger Bamboo in Our Hawaii House

Stand Woven Tiger Bamboo pairs with any kind of wood furniture.

Even though there are no tigers in Hawaii, the strand woven tiger bamboo I just had installed in our bedrooms and den looks very Hawaiian. The carpeting was 25 years old, some of the seams were unraveling, and although it sounded hilarious to my sister when she thought I was heading down a different road than the left-hand turn she didn’t expect, which abruptly threw her into the wall.

I explained to my sister how our tenant’s dog was very ill for about a year and recently died. We were both feeling a bit of sorrow that the dog died but I had more than one reason to be concerned. Sick dogs tend to vomit and god knows what else, all over the carpeting. Yuck. When you think about that, well, it’s not just appearance that makes one want to get rid of dated carpeting.

Horrid 1990 carpeting had to go.

Off to the flooring stores in Kona to search for a solution. The first store I stopped at said they were booked out to February and were not interested in talking with me. I read online reviews about another, and that store actively advertises all over, so I went to Wisteria Lane to look at flooring. Because I have bamboo in our bedrooms in Sacramento, I know it doesn’t hold up well to wear and tear. But what I didn’t know is that strand woven bamboo is nothing like our bamboo at home. I immediately gravitated toward the strand woven tiger bamboo.

The sales person, Amy, picked up a piece of strand woven tiger bamboo and beat it with another piece of wood on its edge. Hard. Slammed it. Over and over. Not a mark. She had also thrown a sample into a sink of water and submerged it for an hour without swelling. Termites like wood, Amy said, but they do not like the glue in the click strand woven tiger bamboo. It’s a sustainable product. Eco-friendly. You can refinish it 2 to 3 times, and it comes with a 50-year warranty on the finish.

I looked at the prices in Home Depot but Home Depot offers only 3/8th thick strand woven tiger bamboo. Wisteria Lane’s product is .55 inches. It was in stock on Oahu and could arrive in Kailua-Kona within 5 days. Sold. Amy referred me to Fred at Sunset Flooring, and Fred came over that same day to measure.

Sunset Flooring in Kona installed 3 rooms of Strand Woven Tiger Bamboo in 2 days.

Fred brought his son and another worker to the house on Thursday, right after the painter finished with the ceilings. It took 3 guys 2 days to install the strand woven tiger bamboo in two bedrooms and our den. It floats on a thick rubber pad. If there is a drawback, it’s the fact it needs baseboards, where bugs can hide. But if I had the time, it can also be installed by cutting into the sheetrock and sliding under it, sans baseboards.

Fred said he used to work with a painter, Greg. But Greg had drug problems and would sniff paint. One day, he said, Greg put on a disguise, or what he thought was a disguise and using a gun, held up a local pharmacist to get oxycontin. The pharmacist recognized him and said, “Hey, Greg, is that you?” Greg shook his head, “No, it’s not me.” Greg went to the Big House.

At first, I thought Fred meant Greg bought a larger home. But that’s because Sacramento real estate is embedded in my brain, even while on vacation in Hawaii. The only thing that is somewhat disturbing here is I often catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and it’s unnerving. I’m not used to the geckos. Fred said his son, as a kid, removed all of Fred’s tools from a cabinet drawer and filled the drawer with hundreds of geckos.

Now I am free to have nightmares about opening a dresser drawer and finding it crawling with geckos. You can thank me later for this image, which I have now passed on to you.