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.