Backyard Kitchen & BBQ Island

I've mentioned before in this blog that our house is small.  Real estate in Orange County, CA is ridiculously priced.  It cost my parents $100k less to buy a 4500' sq. home on an acre lot in Utah than what we paid for our modest 1150' sq. home on a 1/6th acre lot.  They get to keep more of their pay checks too, but that's a completely separate topic.  With our living space issues in mind, and considering that the weather here is great year-round (hence the outlandish real estate prices), we decided to use some of the extra space in the backyard to build an outdoor kitchen/BBQ area, where we can extend the living space of the house, and take advantage of the nice year-round weather.

So the first thing to do was to scope out the area we wanted to use, and determine the size and shape of the project.  There are pro's and con's to being married to the sister of a general contractor.  One pro is that labor and materials are significantly cheaper when taking on a project like this one.  A con is that a small project quickly turns into the Taj Mahal when my wife's brother gets involved.  He already has our master bedroom/home expansion all planned out.  So when I showed Cameron (that's my wife's brother - also the name of the street we live on) the plans I had for an outdoor BBQ island, things escalated quickly.  Within 72 hours of showing him the basic idea and the desired location, he had an architect drawing up plans, and had doubled the size and cost of the project.  But I guess it's go big or go home, right?

So once the architect had drawn up the plans for the pavilion, we took them to the city to get permits.  I'm glad we did this, since there are utility easements on the property, and had we not gotten permits, there may have been issues if we ever tried to sell the house.  In addition, without permits the project would have added less value to our property, if any.  

Since I am kind of a "Do It Yourselfer" I decided to cut the cost of the project by building the BBQ island myself.  I did a lot of internet research and recon (at BBQ specialty stores) to get a basic idea of what kind of BBQ island was feasible and conducive to our back yard.  After deciding on a layout, I found a fully illustrated manual online at http://www.symphonybbq.com/media/Sample.pdf which gives step-by-step instructions on how to build an island, written by a contractor with 30 years experience constructing them.  I bought the manual for $10, and got to work.  I designed the layout, bought the materials at the Home Depot, and started framing.  I made some mistakes (an experienced framer will probably spot them in the photos below), but nothing that couldn't be easily tweaked by the contractors that came to build the structure, which was the next part of the project. 

Using the plans drawn up by the architect, the contractors assembled the pavilion in about a week.  We laid a cement platform about 5" high, under which we ran the electrical.  The contractors also ran a gas, water and sewer line from the house out to the structure.  After it was built, I painted the steel joints and stained the pavilion with the help of my parents who were in town to visit.  This probably saved me a couple of thousand dollars, but it was a lot of work.  Still, if I had to do it again I would.  A couple thousand bucks is a couple thousand bucks!

 

After the pavilion was up and the cement laid, it was time to put the finishing material on the island.  We decided to go with stone, since we like the way it looked over stucco, but this is all personal preference.  There are obviously lots of options.  I had masons do the stone work - I didn't mind screwing up something that will go unseen, but anything visible I decided to leave to the pros.

Once the stone was finished it was time to add the counters and install the appliances.  We went with granite tops, and purchased our appliances from www.bbqgalore.com (of course, we already had the appliances picked out because the island was built around them).  We bought the BBQ Galore brand grill, refrigerator, and storage drawers since they seemed to be made just as well as the name brands but cost about half as much as comparable units.

Thanks to my brother-in-law, this project ended up costing us double what we intended to spend, but we couldn't be happier with the results.  And we still saved a bundle compared with what we would have paid if not for Cameron.  In its first summer of use, we spent just about every weekend, and a lot of weeknights outside soaking up the California weather and enjoying the company of friends and family.  And since this is sunny California and still 70 degrees outside in December, I just grilled some burgers last night while watching the end of the Alabama/Auburn game (YouTube "2013 Auburn vs. Alabama" - I don't think you will ever see an ending to a football game like this one).

I don't have any regrets with the way the project turned out, and (queue the cheesy closing quote) hope that anyone reading this might be inspired to build your island, whatever it may be.

How to Build a Silverware Tray

Last year I decided that our silverware drawer was a disgrace. We had a steel mesh tray for the spoons, forks and knives, but everything else (serving spoons, spatulas, knives, etc.) was just tossed into the extra space, absent of any kind of order. I've been telling my wife for awhile that I suffer from a minor case of self-diagnosed OCD, and the disarray in the silverware drawer finally took its toll on me; I had to do something about it.  This tutorial may or may not be the best way to do this, but it worked well for me, so I thought I would share the method with anyone interested in taking on a project like this.

The first thing I did was to take out the separate items in the silverware drawer, and put them into categories.  Next, I determined how much room would be needed to house each group of utensils.  I combined like items together, cut out appropriately-sized rectangles of paper, and labeled each cutout.  Then I arranged the cutouts in a pattern that would best utilize the space in the drawer.  I tried several different layouts until I found the one that made the most sense and maximized the surface area of the inside of the drawer.

Once I had a blueprint, the next step was to build the box.  This is just a matter of buying the right amount of wood, making precise cuts, and using wood glue to join the pieces.  When cutting the wood pieces, it's best to cut them slightly longer than you need because you can always trim them down a little.  With a project like this, it's important that the wood fits snugly because you're not going to be able to get nails into most of these joints, so the glue will have to hold everything together, along with the snugness of the fit.

Once I had the box assembled, all that was left was to stain, add a few coats of polyurethane lacquer, and lay down some shelf liner, which you can buy very cheaply almost anywhere.  Since organizing the silverware drawer, lots of friends and family members have regained at least a small amount of respect for me, and I no longer have to hang my head in shame at group functions.     

Ethan's Suspended Train Set

Ethan recently turned four, and we wanted to do something special, since this is the first birthday he may remember when gets older.  His favorite thing right now is Thomas the Train, so we decided to get him a train set.  Of course, we understand that kids' favorite things change as often as their shoe size, but the cool thing about a train set is that it's something that can evolve as he grows up.


We immediately realized there were two problems we'd run up against with the train idea.  First, our house is only 1,200 square feet, and we barely have room for the toys he already has.  Second, Ethan's favorite activity is destroying the things we buy for him, which is fine and dandy if we're talking about his little $15 trains, but the Lionel O gauge sets can get pretty pricy.  So we decided to kill two birds with one stone, and build the layout seven feet above the floor, where he'll be able to enjoy, but not touch, and it won't take up any room on the floor.     


This being the 21st century, the first thing I did was jump online and Google "suspended train set," which yielded about 2.3 million results.  The first result to come up, was a blog, much like this one, where a guy with a few boys had inherited an HO gauge set, and built a shelf around his boys' room, including a tunnel that went through the wall and in the closet (http://www.murraymadhouse.net/projects/trains/).  I did a lot of additional research, but ultimately decided to model the train around this one, as it seemed to be the most practical, easiest to build, and least prefabricated.  I decided against the tunnel through the closet, partly due to it being a little more work than I wanted to take on, and also because I decided to go with a larger gauge (O), which would leave less margin for error on the turning radius, and I didn't want to screw it up.  Besides, there was plenty already that I could screw up, so I decided to just do a simple track around the perimeter of the room.   


The first step was to create a border around the room with molding, which would later support the shelves.  Note: Now that I have done this project from start to finish, I would have put up the wallpaper border first were I to do it again, but either way will work just fine.

After the molding was up, we found a scenic wallpaper border and put it on above the molding.  Believe it or not, finding the wallpaper border wasn't easy.  I finally found the perfect backdrop at http://www.borderstore.com/.  What I liked most about this border was that 1) it didn't look like a 3rd grader finger painted the scene (nothing against 3rd graders), and 2) it came in 12' sections, which meant that I wouldn't need to repeat the pattern every 2-3 feet.  it was very easy to install, and looks great behind the train set.  We chose the mountain scene because it went well with the color scheme of the room, but there are many other backdrops available, and from what I understand, there are stores out there that specialize in train backdrops that have much more variety. 

After the border was up, it was time to cut, stain and install the shelving.  This is not hard to do, it just requires precision and patience.  For the longer pieces it helps to have a second person.  For the ends of shelving not resting directly on the molding, I used mounting brackets to fasten them to the adjacent shelf.  I cut corner pieces and mounted with brackets so that there was room to make the turns with the O gauge track.  I made sure to cut to the right size before staining and lacquering.  After the shelves were up, I drilled holes and screwed them to the molding to make them as secure as possible.  I considered putting some kind of barrier around the edge of the shelf to prevent the train from falling in the event of a derailment or earthquake, but so far we haven't had an issue with that.  Note: We now tend to park the train in the tunnel or on a bridge when not in use, so that if an earthquake were to shake things up, the train wouldn't fall off the shelf. 

After all of the shelving was up, it was time for the fun part.  On a Saturday morning about a week before his birthday, I took Ethan to a model train store here in Orange County (http://milepost38modeltrains.com/).  When we walked through the door and he saw the shelves stacked with trains and accessories, he stopped in his tracks and had to just breathe for a minute to take it all in.  He was in heaven.  He immediately ran to the Thomas section and started filling his shopping cart (arms) with the $15 engines.  I told him we were there to get something bigger, and led him to the Lionel section where there were all different types of sets.  For a minute I tried to convince him to get something other than the Thomas set since I thought he might grow out of Thomas in a couple of years, but he wouldn't even consider anything but the blue Thomas engine with his two coaches, Annie and Clarabel.  The starter set only came with a few feet of track, so make sure you have already determined how much extra you will need if you take on a project like this.  I had done the math, and bought a little more than I would need.  The store was very good about letting me return the excess.

From there, it was just about deciding where to put buildings and trees and other accessories.  Most of the accessories I bought on eBay, including a bridge kit.  I modified the kit a little and was actually able to build two bridges instead of just the one.

Building the train for Ethan was a lot of fun, and it's rewarding to see the finished product.  He loves running the train around the track, stopping at stations, houses and the water tower.  We put the transformer on the floor so he can control everything himself, and I bought a separate transformer to power the lights in all of the accessories.  If you have a child who's into trains and you want to do something like this, plan on it taking at least a couple of weekends to build (not to mention the accessory additions you will want to do later on).  You can look around and price everything, but even the savvy shopper will probably spend quite a bit on this kind of layout, depending on what kind of train and accessories you choose to buy.  But if this is still something he enjoys in 10 years, it will have been well worth the money and effort spent.  Just seeing him stop whatever he is doing to show visitors his train set is rewarding enough for me.