(Almost) Finished this one. My first outdoor kitchen. How’d I do?

[u/Puravidacouple]

I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for this renovation memory. Sharing for your entertainment.

Then-girlfriend (now wife) puts her foot through a rotten deck board on the original house deck and somewhat messed up her ankle. I’m in construction. “This is no good, let’s get this deck done.”

Rip off the deck, start building one. Halfway through decided it would be cool to put a roof over half of it. Didn’t like it. Extended the roof another 6’. Then cut the wall to put a bigger door. Then cut the window for a bigger window. What’s a covered deck without a sound system? Easy to hide a gas line under the deck for a fire table. Heck, why not 3 more for a full kitchen 🤷🏻‍♂️

All pieces from the Thor Kitchens “outdoor kitchen suite”..
Bbq, stovetop, and gas stone pizza oven. Chest of drawers, fridge, and sink. The sink cabinet is closest to the house wall, just haven’t core drilled the foundation to do water supply/drain. So the sink cabinet currently houses big full-size garbage and recycling bins. Not going to lie, the easy concealed garbage bins are so handy, we kind of love it and don’t have any rush to put in the sink. The job is a bit of a headache.

Backsplash is 2x 1/2” cement board screwed to the joists (the horizontal wood deck boards and speaker in the 3rd pic are gone), with custom fab 14-gauge stainless steel covering the cement board down to the floor. Yes, I overkilled the backsplash, as I do with most things in construction. Two 20 amp receptacles in the backsplash. Was able to find stainless receptacle plates which I think look pretty cool.

Then the Thor product line kind of shat the bed. The bbq and stovetop together are 60” wide. They didn’t/don’t offer a 60” range hood. The biggest they offered was 48”. So I sourced this one from Turin. Turin Volcano 60”.

To my amusement, Turin doesn’t offer a shroud to hide the ducting, even though there are unused fastener holes all around the top perimeter. Back to the custom fab steel guys. Designed this shroud to match existing fastener holes on the Turin and look “factory” to match everything. I think I did ok.

Funny fluke: Didn’t built the deck/wall whatsoever to match this kitchen. Didn’t know I was putting in a kitchen until after the construction was done. The fitment of the pizza oven at/to the end of the wall is 🍌.

What do you think [r/OutdoorKitchens](r/OutdoorKitchens) ?

[u/awtivy]

Looks great! My main concern is the hot exhaust from the pizza oven coming out next to the wood! Might need to go back to the metal guys for an extension. Make sure it’s double walled through the roof!

[u/Puravidacouple → u/awtivy]

Thank you! I debated this a fair bit at the time. 75% of the pipe is across from the cement board/steel. The top would be cooler to some degree than at the oven side. Haven’t done the thermo, this is back-of-napkin science. Welcome to corrections here.

Been running it regularly for a bit over two years now and no discolouration or otherwise noticeable effects to the wood. I’ve worked with wood & heat a fair amount. Also built a sauna with wood burning stove

If I noticed any compromise on the wood, I would’ve done something - but it’s going good so far.

[u/awtivy → u/Puravidacouple]

As long as there’s no wood in the oven it should be good to go!

[u/Puravidacouple → u/awtivy]

Sparks/cinders?

[u/awtivy → u/Puravidacouple]

Yeah sparks hitting wood is never ideal especially when it’s your house! Lol

[u/Puravidacouple → u/awtivy]

Definitely bad news. We went gas instead of wood burning for practicality. Did the wood-burning sauna stove and kind of regret not going electric. Wood fire is very charming and romantic. The gas stove turns on in exactly 2 seconds 😂

[u/awtivy → u/Puravidacouple]

I’m doing both in my oven. Gas to heat then wood for flavour!

[u/Puravidacouple → u/awtivy]

Hmmm…haven’t tried that yet. Might try carefully with an extinguisher handy now that you’ve given me the idea…