Outdoor Kitchen

With summer weather upon us in Florida, it’s a perfect time to upgrade your outdoor area for summer parties and BBQs.

My client already had a large low level deck for outdoor entertaining but they wanted the convenience of an outdoor kitchen instead of having to go back and forth inside for every drink they made or utensils needed for the grill.  She has a modern looking house and didn’t want the look of veneer stone or brick.  I built a fence for her with metal and horizontal slats and she wanted the same look on the kitchen.

She already had a nice Jenn-Air gas grill and wanted to continue to use it.  After going through some pictures online to help us come together on the final design we came up with the kitchen below which was built on a new low level deck that was tied into the current deck and well supported with three beams for the weight of the new kitchen.  The grill sits between two galley built PT wood frames with cypress wood horizontal siding with metal wrapped behind it.

I originally thought about a tile counter-top but she didn’t want the unevenness of the grout lines for cleaning purposes.  That’s when we came up with a concrete counter-top. The concrete counter-tops are formed in place with pt plywood as the base with a 12 inch overhang  for the bar to make a solid counter-top that will withstand the outdoor elements.

To round the kitchen off, we plumbed a small bar sink to an already in place outdoor faucet and ran the grey water discharge to a garden.  We also had an electrician install an outdoor outlet that the outdoor refrigerator is plugged into.  She has a pullout trash in between the sink and fridge and 3 drawers on the opposite bar for storage.  All drawer hinges and pulls are stainless steel to withstand the outdoor elements.  If she decides to change out her grill later for a built in version, we can build a frame for the grill and tie it in with a poured concrete counter-top around the grill.

Does your outdoor area need upgrading?  Call me for ideas and an estimate.   

After a few months, the homeowner decided they wanted a roof over the kitchen since the concrete counter-top was getting very hot in the sun and to keep out the rain  After the roof was built, the homeowners spend a great amount of time sitting outside at their bar.