For sometime, I have wanted to work on garden project that is inspired by the Polynesian Resort. There are truly so many things I love about the Polynesian Resort. It made it hard to choose the elements I wanted to base my design on. I decided to focus on the lobby. I mainly wanted to focus on the lobby, because on every vacation I end spending some time in this lobby. Some of my favorite restuarants are located here, and I always end up waiting for at least one person in this lobby per a trip. The lobby has always had a beautiful atrium feel to it with the open skylight. I love the bamboo everywhere. The space is so open and warm that it made difficult to convey on such a small scale for my project.

So here’s what I started with. This is a plant wall the I made several years ago. I felt it was good starting point for developing our polynesian area.

I first thing I decided I needed was some type of bamboo art. There is so much bamboo incorporated in the decor of the Polynesian’s lobby. I love the wall where you can find hidden Mickeys. The more I thought about it, it seemed like the perfect project for the scale that I was working with. It was also something I felt I move inside during the winter.

I ordered five 6ft bamboo tubes from Amazon.com. I used a jigsaw and a vice to cut the tubes into roughly 2 ich thick slices. This took quite a bit of time, but it was worth it when I saw the rough lay out of our project.

I had to sand every peice. It was eastiest to sand in circular motion on stationary sand paper. I then glued on the pieces with epoxy. You want the epoxy that has two tubes to mix. I used Gorilla glue two part expoxy. I just dipped one end of the bamboo in the epoxy and placed on the pre-painted board. I let glue the set overnight before taking it outside to hang it.

I hung the bamboo art next to the plant wall. After that I started gathering things around the house I could reuse.

I spray painted another old garden table. I gave it a fresh coat of red paint.

Every tropical paradise needs some tropical plants. I got a bird of paradise plant, calla lillies, and philodendron.

After decorating a bit, I came up with this. I used existing garden chairs and existing candle holder to incorporate in with the plants. I ended up purchasing the glass buoys from Amazon.com.

After looking at it for a week, I decided to add a water feature, a palm, orchids and some volcanic rock. Now all I need is a Pago Pago painkiller.