The starting idea is a good one: a maritime-themed home bar, called the Quarterdeck Club, where the lighting is crafted to fit how the maker wants the space presented. Better Cocktails at Home built it around a 21-light Philips Hue setup, a dozen speakers, and Alexa voice control, and the whole room reads as a proper ship-inspired space rather than a bar with a few bulbs bolted on.
On the construction side, three LED strips run behind the tiered backbar shelving and route through the wall cavities back to one controller and power supply. Overhead there are recessed can lights, while six wall sconces get a candle-style flicker driven by a third-party app. The pass-through is a wooden multi-pane window frame suspended on ropes from a beam overhead, with liquor bottles on shelves, wood paneling and a patterned floor runner behind it.
The porthole is the standout for me: a circular brass ring holds aerated liquid under its own dedicated Hue light, cycling through blue, red and white while a pump makes bubbling sounds. A replica glass deck prism hangs below a daylight-balanced LED puck inside a projector enclosure, echoing vintage prisms that once brought daylight down into wooden ship holds, with archival photos of the Charles W. Morgan shown alongside. An outdoor-style lantern sconce throws the window grid's shadow across a dark wall, and I think that shadow effect is a lovely touch.
The trade-off is control. The maker finds the new Hue app frustrating, has trouble picking out just one light among 21 bulbs in a single room, and says horizontal scrolling across that many bulbs will always be bad, even after learning the app over time. A prototype of the porthole came first, and a full breakdown of how it was built is promised early next week.
Project by Better Cocktails at Home. Watch it on their YouTube channel: