We finished our outdoor kitchen a few months ago and I wanted to share here in case it helps others. It’s currently functioning as our main kitchen because we are remodeling the one inside, so it does get a lot of use. It was a big splurge but we use our backyard way more now.

Things we are glad we did:

-Woodburning pizza oven. It‘s a lot of fun and only takes an hour or so to get up to temperature. We’ve hosted parties where we make a bunch of different pizzas and that works really well.

-Large island. We have a big family so it’s nice to have a place where everyone can eat together.

-Living area. It’s really peaceful to drink coffee out here in the morning.

-Fridge. Super helpful to keep drinks and pizza toppings out there.

-Grill/pizza oven only. We talked about putting in other cooking appliances, such as a burner or place for an egg. We actually bought a standalone electric burner (hot plate, really) and that works well for occasional use.

-TV and speakers. We don’t use the TV a ton, but we put on music almost every time we go out there.

Things I wish we’d done differently:

-Sink/bar center. We chose a “bar center” sink because it looked cool. I love having a sink, but the one in the bar center is WAY too small and we don’t use the rest of the bar center at all like we thought we would.

-Storage. There isn’t enough and it’s not configured all that well. For example, I have silverware in a plastic shoebox in one of the drawers. I don’t know if we could have done anything differently, but I wish I’d thought more carefully about what I wanted to store out there.

-Limestone countertop. It‘s pretty and I’m glad we didn’t do granite, so I’m not sure what else we would have done, but it stains like crazy. We decided to just embrace them, and may someday seal it.

-Firepit gas connection. We were going to have a fireplace but removed it from the design in favor of a firepit. However I wish we’d have added a gas connection for that when we were putting in the gas line for the grill.

Overall it’s wonderful, so even the things I’d change are super minor. I just thought I’d share in case it helps anyone starting the process of building one.