The Lava Hut

After months of a “lazy shingle“ roof I have decided to replace the roof with a sold roof.

The initial roof for The Lava Hut was based on the appearance not on the function, I wanted it to have the look of shingles. Why shingles you may ask, well I am from Arizona and well to put it lightly I have a lot of sun and a lot of heat, and the doing a typical tiki bar roof seemed like a mess waiting to happen because everything would fall apart from sun rot. The second reason for the shingle look was to use what I already had and not spend more money. I had an over abundance of wood left over from creating the rest of the bar.

I enjoyed having the uneven spaces between the boards in the roof because they would let in light and create weird patterns on the bar top. At night the light would shoot through the spaces on the roof making golden lines of light.

While I enjoyed the look of the roof I didn’t think of the down sides of having a lazy roof. First the tree that hung over the hut would drop debris into the bar area. Secondly the few times we would actually get rain (again I’m in Arizona and rain doesn’t really happen here). Now you might think well it’s an outdoor open bar of course it would get dirt and rain at times, and I agree and even expected it, what I didn’t expect was how the rain would puddle in the same place each time and sit long enough to cause the wood of the bar top to deform and undo all the hard work I put into it.

So I decided to fix the problem the lazy way… (it will comeback to haunt me at some point). Plywood and lots of paint!

I was able to have the stain I used on the build of the Hut matched to an outdoor paint that would hold up to the elements (well at least it should). I painted both to top and the bottom to seal the wood as good as possible.

Now I have a bit of OCD that will force me to get some more stain or paint to darken the support wood and not have it stand out like it does right now. Luckily I don’t look up to often when I am in the Hut so maybe ill be strong and hold out for better weather.

Now there is no leaks and no more debris coming in from above. While it doesn’t have the look I wanted in the beginning, I have to remember that function is more important.

At the end of the day, who cares what the roof looks like as long as I like it that’s all that matters (its for me anyways)