Outdoor Takhatposh

Every takhatposh you remember lived indoors because indoors is where the furniture was. Put one on a deck in Surrey and it becomes the best seat in the house for seven months of the year — chai in the morning, a nap in the afternoon, and enough room for whoever turns up.

We build ours in solid Western Red Cedar. Cedar is the right wood for this and it is worth saying why: it is naturally rot and insect resistant with no chemicals in it at all, it is light enough for two people to shift when you want the deck back, and it holds its shape through a wet BC winter instead of twisting. Left alone it weathers to a soft silver-grey. Oiled once a year it stays the colour it arrived.

Joinery is mortise-and-tenon at the legs and rails, the same as an indoor piece, with stainless steel fixings throughout — galvanised screws react with cedar and bleed black streaks down the legs within a season.

If budget is the deciding factor we will build it in pressure-treated lumber instead, and it will do the job. But treated wood arrives wet, moves as it dries, and stays rough where cedar goes smooth. For something people sit on barefoot, cedar is the one we would put on our own deck.

Takes a gaddi, outdoor cushions, or nothing at all. Built to your measurements, because a deck is never the size the catalogue assumed.