#Build An Outdoor Kitchen

Outdoor kitchens are a great DIY project. Build one and you may never want to go back to cooking inside.

An outdoor kitchen is more than a rollaway cart and a barbecue--even if you have a really nice barbecue. "To be considered an outdoor kitchen," says Sergio de Paula, president of Fogazzo Wood Fired Ovens and Barbecues, "the project must include at least one good-quality cooking appliance--like a gas grill or a wood-fired oven--some counter space and a sink."Planning that space is a considerable job--this is a lot more complicated than simply rearranging the patio furniture before your next cookout.

The most exciting trend in outdoor kitchen construction is the wood-fired pizza oven. These can be built on-site using fire-resistant brick and mortar, or they can be built from a kit that consists of a multi-piece manufactured masonry shell and other materials such as insulation. Kits make oven construction far more accessible to a DIY builder. Have a look at ovens at these Web sites: wildwoodovens.com and fogazzo.com.

Note that the oven drawing at left is a generalized view. These structures can be built different ways. Those who build them and cook with them have strong opinions about what is best. Given that, you will likely encounter widely different types of advice as you do preconstruction research.

Get Oriented

Proper orientation is key when planning an outdoor kitchen, and that's every bit as true in the shady Northeast as in the sunny Southwest. A house absorbs heat during the day and radiates it back to its surroundings in the late afternoon and early evening, the prime time for outdoor dining. If you're positioning the kitchen against the house, or even near it, it's best to do so along a north-facing wall and not one facing the sunnier and hotter south or west. In all cases, place the seating so that you and your guests are not blinded by the setting sun.

Depending on your climate, you may need to shelter the space from the elements. "Wind is the biggest issue we face here," says Karen Black, a kitchen designer in Oklahoma City. "Landscaping is great. Trees make good windbreaks, or we design a windbreak as part of the construction."

Appliances such as propane-fired heaters help keep an outdoor dining area comfortable in cooler weather, and outdoor-rated ceiling fans mounted on shade structures can help keep things cool when summer temperatures are climbing.

Once you figure out where to put the kitchen, think about the specifics of outfitting it. People get tired of running to and from the house for ice or to flip the pancakes. "We put in a lot of ice machines and gas-fired griddles," says Mike Logan of Texas Pit Crafters, located in the Houston suburb of Tomball. So the kind of cooking you want to do determines appliance choices. A backyard chef who wants to go beyond burgers and steaks into baking pizza and cooking breakfast will need counter space for preparation work and a griddle or, in the case of pizza, an oven. (See "All Fired Up," below.)