This is the beginning of an Outdoor Kitchen Addition project that my husband and I are working on (more like he is working). An outdoor kitchen is very important to our family because we grill out at least 3-4 days a week about 10 months out of the year. The other two months we still grill about once or twice every week or two. So needless to say the outdoor kitchen is almost as important as the indoor kitchen to our family.
We bought our current house almost two years ago and initially built a back porch thinking that the space would be used for grilling. However, we have quickly realized that the porch has become a gathering place. The grill has been pushed to the end of the porch out of everyone’s way. Whenever we have big family cookouts we are placing the gas fryer at the end of the porch next to the grill and praying that none of the toddlers get anywhere close. It’s a balancing act trying to cook, watch kids, and socialize.
So back in January my husband, Ricky, decided he wanted to add-on to our porch for an outdoor kitchen. Our budget is very tight, we don’t have much money to spend, so everything has to be a necessity. My husband had ideas I had ideas, but we were having a very hard time agreeing on our idea. My husband is extremely talented with building construction which makes him want to go overboard at times. I’m usually trying to rein him back-in from wanting to take it over the top, however this time was a little different. He was being very conservative and looking for the most cost efficient way to create this outdoor kitchen which was great. But, (there’s always a but) he wanted to fit 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound bag if you know what I mean. We have designed, built, and remodeled numerous homes over 30 years and I usually handle the space planning aspect. Now you’re starting to see why we couldn’t agree on our idea. 😉
Outdoor Kitchen Part 1
After a lot of discussion (and sighing) we finally agreed on a small addition to our existing porch. My husband got started setting the posts, building the floor framing, and adding the tin roof. It’s a small space about 7 feet x 12 feet. We wanted enough space for an outdoor sink, a prep space, the grill, and the high pressure gas fryer.In the beginning Ricky wanted all of those things within that 84 square feet and I kept saying I didn’t think it was going to work. It would be very tight for my son-in-laws, my husband, and me to be working simultaneously (my husband and one of my son-in-laws are big men). But we continued moving forward with the project. I knew that once the basic framing was in place I could make my case again about the space constraints. 🙂 Up to this point we have less than $300 in materials for the wood, tin, and concrete. Now how much of this was lying around our shed already, only my husband knows the answer to that!
Keep your eyes open for Part 2 of this Outdoor Kitchen Addition. The pace isn’t very fast since my husband works on it only on Saturday and occasionally on Friday evenings. This project isn’t for the inexperienced diy’er. On my ratings scale this project would be for a CA.
To see my ratings scale information visit this post. Ricky is very conscientious about quality construction. He makes sure an elephant could walk on it! Like I said before he tends to go overboard, but that’s what makes him such an artist. He does very good work and has some great ideas too. I am very blessed to have such a talented husband who loves me through it all. 🙂
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