Post #790291 by Prikli Pear on Wed, Oct 3, 2018 9:20 PM

The Lagoon of Mystery is primarily occupying a 65' covered patio. Thus far, we've tikified about half of that covered space. The farthest end, below, remains mostly untouched. I use it for my work area and it's normally somewhat cluttered. When we have gatherings, nobody goes there, because there's no reason to. My grand vision, however, was to have this as the "cool spot" to hang out. I call it "Mermaid Cove" because of the silhouette painted on the ceiling. I wanted to install a circular restaurant booth here as a sort of physical statement "This is the end of the tiki bar." The only trouble was that new booths are crazy expensive. I'd resigned myself to build one, but I couldn't find any plans online that matched what I envisioned. Even with plans, the build would tax my modest carpentry and upholstery skills.

By sheer, dumb luck, I discovered a recently-closed Fuddrucker's in Houston (I love their burgers, so a location closing is kind of bittersweet) was selling off their restaurant booths. What's more, their asking price was less than the cost of lumber to build my own. Wow. So last Saturday I drove shuttle run, borrowing my brother's trailer and heading to Houston and back, having logged approximately 500 miles. I ached. But I had my booth. Totally worth it!

This is how it looks in situ. I am currently building a table in the style of my previous cocktail tables for the booth, which will look spectacular once in place. I've decided to build a (modestly) raised deck for the booth to rest on to enhance the sense that Mermaid Cove is a distinct location unto itself. What to do with the opening to the yard beyond is starting to come together in my mind, involving a combination of bamboo poles, thatch and Chinese jade breezeway tiles. All of that lies in the future, however. Currently I am weatherproofing all the wood surfaces with my go-to sealant, Flood CWF-UV (natural clear). Those open areas around the back of the booth? I plan to close those in and turn into storage cabinets through the strategic use of hinges and magnet locks. I've done some measurements and sketches, and am convinced I can thoroughly tikify this booth before I even think of replacing the vinyl with tapa pattern (which, initially, I thought I would have to do first thing).

The downside is that this was a restaurant booth. There was all sorts of foodstuffs, grease and grime embedded in every nook and cranny. I will spare you the photos of that. A pressure washer and several hours of scrubbing with 409 removed the vast majority of gunk, and the booth is now cleaner than it has been for 20 years. As always, more photos and a detailed, step-by-step writeup may be found on my blog.