Styling your tropical dream home!

by: Karen Fabre, Real Estate Consultant

About 25 years ago, Tamarindo was still a quiet coastal village, barely any foreign residents around.
Steadily, North Americans, Europeans and others alike started discovering Costa Rica’s beauty and the positive aspects of its way of life. And so, partly thanks to the steady and reliable waves and the opening of Costa Rica’s second international airport at Liberia, Tamarindo started booming. Retirees and investors, but increasingly also families with young children in search of a better quality of live, have found their way to the Tamarindo region and purchased property.
Naturally, many of these new home owners, not only want to take in the sunshine, palm trees, hours of fun in the ocean or the natural wonders. They also long for their new houses to feel like home again, looking for ways to not only furnish them, with furniture that withstands the tropical climate, but also decorate them in style, preferably the style that fits their taste. Of course Tamarindo did not offer the luxury of a furniture store, warehouse or design studio on every corner.

With a very limited furniture selection in the area in those early years, and Tamarindo being further away from the capital city, companies offering help with the purchase of furniture and appliances, and decoration services, started to rise. Pacific Home Furnishings, located in Liberia, offers “Home furnishing packages” based on a selection of furnishings available in Costa Rica or custom made furniture manufactured locally.
Other companies, such as Tropical House Interiors, with showroom in Cañafistula, focus on import of furniture from South East Asia, offering home furnishing packages with a style ranging from Natural Contemporary to Tropical Colonial.

As the demand is still growing, more recently, Tamarindo residents have also shown to be very tasteful and artistic. More contemporary and European design studios are popping up, and creative minds come up with elegant solutions for specific items not yet readily available in the area.

Wood from the Guanacaste tree is stylishly being given a new use by MuDesign, offering stools, tables and unique decorative wood pieces, that will give any home a sophisticated, contemporary reference to Costa Rica.
At GirlFish you can find fashionable LEPOUF bean bags in bright colors to add style and comfort to your pool side lounge experience.
Designs by Sven, lead by fashionista Sven Geniets, the current interior designer for boutique hotel Cala Luna, offers contemporary and chic total concept design of any interior and trendy make-overs. “City at the beach” is his trademark style!

So, before moving to Costa Rica, one question to answer is whether one would take the opportunity to declutter, sell all belongings, and set for a fresh home styling experience from scratch, or pack the complete household, ship it to Costa Rica and deal with local custom taxes and regulations (which is a separate story by itself). That is a question that only each person can answer for himself.

But knowing that several options for furnishing services in several styles and tastes, and for fashionable and trendy decoration and interior design have risen over the years and keep on rising, even in Tamarindo itself, may help one to make this decision and to fulfill that dream of a tropical, yet elegant and homey getaway.