Should we put a mini fridge in our outdoor BBQ area?
We are building a house, and will have a built-in BBQ area in the back yard, off the terrace. I know we will get a built-in gas grill, and possibly also a built-in charcoal grill/smoker (one appliance that does both), though we may opt to not build that in, and just store in the shed when not in use, since that will be more of a special/occasional use item.
Anyways, while we think we definitely need a small sink out there for washing hands (whether from putting food on the grill or for kids playing outside), I'm not sure about whether we need a fridge. We aren't people who would store lots of bottled drinks in there--we are more likely to have a water glass that we'd fill up from the filtered tap in the kitchen (which is on the far end of the house, NOT adjacent to the terrace/BBQ), or we'd grab specific cans of beer or wine from the kitchen or mudroom fridge. The only time I could see us stocking an outdoor fridge with drinks would be for a larger gathering, which honestly would not happen often. While I love the thought of entertaining all the time, in reality it will usually be just the 3 of us (me, my husband, my toddler)!
So the real use for the fridge that I could foresee would be for cooking--holding condiments? Except we will not have a formal dining table outdoors, so will not have an official meals out there...we would come back into the kitchen, where we'd keep condiments, salad, etc. I thought maybe using it for holding raw meat before cooking, but large trays or plates would not fit in a mini fridge anyways...I'd just bring them out from the kitchen fridge. The only time we'd sit and eat outside would be an informal BBQ day when we kinda mingle, kids are outside playing, sit down at the coffee table on the terrace and eat with plates on our laps, etc.
Our main fear is regretting NOT putting one in, because it seems like most everyone does!
Other factors:
- we have one young child, could be a second down the road
- we aren't currently people who spend a ton of time outdoors, but we don't have a yard right now (we live in a townhouse with no yard), and as our child gets older. and a this new house will have a large yard, we think we'll spend more and more time outside.
- we live in a climate where we'll only be out there grilling from maybe April to October.
Comments (26)
Related Discussions
Help - where do we put our pool?
Comments (5)Thanks for the advice. I'm leaning more towards the barn option since the barn can act as a pool house. arielitas_mom - main reason, I really don't want kids running through the house dripping wet! Barco - thanks for the suggestion about the list, it helped to see it written down. Luckily both locations have all day sunshine. Tresw - sorry about my lack of information, I didn't want to bore with details - not to mention I'm a newbie =). I appreciate your feedback. I'm having my landscape architect come by Friday. He's leaning on the barn option. The PB said barn option would be cheaper, but he wasn't aware of the 25 ft setback the town requires which will put the pool in the hill. This fact made our project manager lean towards the other option - also stating it would cost more to develop two areas - we're already developing the upper area to become our bbq area. Another "stupid" question - if you have horses, would they be freaked out by the pool?? We have a horse paddock on the other side of the barn - one day there is the possibility of horses......See MoreHusband wants to put 20 y/o fridge back in renovated kitchen. HELP!
Comments (105)Let me be the contrarian here. If you need to cut back somewhere, the fridge is an obvious place to start. It's easily replaceable at a later date, and, as others on GW have observed, the fridge is the appliance that gives you the least bang for your buck. I see no conflict in buying an expensive range and keeping an old fridge. Our kitchen renovation ran well into six figures (not including appliances) and we spent another $14K on a Wolf rangetop, M Series oven and CSO, but decided to keep our 3 y.o. KitchenAid dishwasher, and 25 y.o. Hotpoint fridge. Both my wife and I think the kitchen looks quite nice this way. I'd be happy to post a picture if someone could tell me how to do it (I click photo and click on the picture, but nothing seems to happen). In any event, our new kitchen layout precluded re-using our old Thermador range (even though it was in perfect shape), so cooking appliances were the obvious area to devote to our rapidly-dwindling resources. My wife didn't think it was worth the extra $1,000 to get a CSO instead of a double oven, but I ultimately convinced her it was worth a shot. She still prefers the M Series, so the CSO is "my" oven and the M Series is "hers". The dishwasher decision came next. I would love to get a Miele Pro Series DW at some point, as it can do a load in 25 minutes, but at $5K it's pretty pricey. Our KitchenAid runs fine, so we decided to re-use it, but have a 220V receptacle installed under the sink. So, a future upgrade to a Miele will be pretty simple. Finally decisions had to be made about a refrigerator. Our fridge space goes into a cubby in the mud room, so we're lucky in that we can accommodate either a counter depth or a full-depth fridge. Neither my wife nor I could see the point in spending $8K on a SZ or other high-end fridge, when $2K will provide you with a fridge that works almost as well and has more storage space, so we ruled out a counter-depth pretty quickly. There were 2 main reasons why we decided to keep our old fridge, at least for the time being. The first is my concern about noise and reliability. Our 25 y.o. Hotpoint is very quiet and has had exactly one service call in 25 years (by contrast our 3 new Wolf appliances have had a total of 7 service calls in just 4 months). My perception is that newer appliances just aren't built as well as they used to be. We have to keep our GE washer & dryer under maintenance contracts, as they seem to crap out at least once a year, whereas our old Whirlpool ran over 20 years without a problem. Also after reading reviews of even highly-rated refrigerators, I get the impression that new fridges are much noisier than the old ones. Someone told me that this is because the new energy-efficient compressors make a lot of noise. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't be too concerned about this, as the fan on our Wolf M Series sounds like a jet engine once the oven gets hot. Most of our meals are spent with that thing howling in the background. Maybe the biggest reason for keeping the old fridge though, was due to a simple matter of aesthetics. My wife doesn't like having too much stainless steel in the kitchen, and all of the better full depth fridges only seem top come in that. Our old fridge is a nice cream color with black accents on the handles that perfectly matches our Kohler Biscuit sinks. The closest you can get to this color nowadays seems to be a "bisque" color, that is monotone and way too yellow for my taste. So we decided to keep our old fridge in the hope that something more to our liking comes out before this one decides to kick the bucket. We took a 3 week vacation during construction and left the fridge powered off and closed, which was a big mistake. We almost decided to chuck the fridge when we came back and discovered it was full of mold. It took almost a full day of scrubbing with Clorox, but it ended up looking almost new again. The same thing happened again, when the carpenters took the fridge out for the floor refinishing. They took the doors off this time and covered the fridge in plastic. We returned to find the worst of both worlds - the fridge was full of both sawdust and mold. In the end, both my wife and I are happy with our decision to keep the old fridge. We know its days are numbered, but will be sad to see it go....See MoreHelp with outdoor bbq and fire pit!
Comments (3)Do you prefer the smooth finish or textured? My general thought is if you are planning to be there for awhile do what you like. Any new owner will likely able to tell on aging that you added the outdoor space and it is a nice selling point anyway. The pavers and landscaping will make it feel update so I think for the fire pit/BBQ do what you like....See MoreDebating if we should put an offer on this house—need opinions!
Comments (21)when I buy houses I get every contractor there is out to inspect the critical elements, someone mentioned above HVAC, roof, septic if applicable - to cover the big stuff... if I think aesthetic work needs doing I get a contractor out (usually your realtor knows at least one) and get an idea for costs from them. I then use that info to decide whether I think the aesthetic updates make sense vs the purchase price or you if they're even in my budget at all. if not then I either have to live with things or work around them or walk away. If this is going to be your forever home you can do it over time but plan on big bucks for the columns and the kitchen. professional painters are big bucks too....See More
blinktmb
3 years agoblinktmb
3 years agoblinktmb
3 years agoblinktmb
3 years agoblinktmb
3 years agoblinktmb
3 years agomegs1030
3 years agoUser
3 years agochispa
3 years agoKim G
3 years agochispa
3 years agoPusiwillow Smith
3 years ago
Mark Bischak, Architect