Surprise!
We had one more "room" to share!
2nd Man is getting his kitchen and I'm getting a space outside to make my own! And it will be...
An outdoor cooking porch/grilling/summer kitchen area (an area of many names!)
It was originally just a space behind the garage with the back wall and a door out into the back yard, stepping into grass and/or flower bed. When I saw the space on the plan though, I thought, "hmm, this could make a good space for something!?"
So, we asked about having the concrete slab just extended to be even with the footprint of the back side of the house. Done!
This gives us an extra "porch" that will be 5'8" deep by 22' long. Almost 130 additional square feet of usable space and an extension of the house in a way.
It'll be this space on the back where the door is. It won't be covered but...
...we'll get a retractable awning, at some point, ha. That will come later, but it will be easier than building out from the house. We looked into that but it would have changed our roofline and added a lot of expense to the house.
These are still pricy though, so we were thinking we could do this in the interim:
Something that can be put up and bolted down until we decide what to do. We won't have a porch railing since it would look weird without a roof extension.
I'm going to need some shade so I can do this:
In fact, I have already found the item I want. This is a gas grill with a side burner and counter space. You can even deck it out with shelves and more cabinets. In fact, this isn't even the length we can have. This has a side burner, grill and then 4 feet of counter space (and cabinets). We will add another 4 feet of counter space with another section. It's made for outdoor use, the cabinets are soft close, stainless steel, and the back of the grill section is heatproof for being able to put against a wall.
Sometimes, people want outdoor sinks and fridges, but, just inside that door to the garage, we'll have the large utility sink and next to that, a full refrigerator/freezer. The garage fridge will be mostly for drinks and just space for extra things but when grilling outside, I can use it for marinating and keeping the ingredients handy, and then the sink is just a step around the corner. We think that will be just fine.
Speaking of handy, we have this space:
I measured and this extra (matching) counter/cabinet will fit perfectly in this spot:
It matches the grilling cabinets and is the same stainless steel with soft close cabinets. It'll give us even more usable countertop, prep space, staging area or even a place to put finished dishes (or dirty ones!).
Granted, we already know we won't be keeping loose items in the cabinets, lest they be covered in spiders, bugs and whatever else, but I'm thinking some plastic containers can store some good things too.
The 16' length of space along the back will give us the grill and side burner at one end and then eight feet of space in the middle for countertop and then about 4 more feet for something else (griddle perhaps?).
There will be two electrical outlets along the wall so we'll have space for plugging things in on that eight foot long space and with that in mind, I was thinking:
My own canning kitchen space!
We already have a couple of portable induction burners and of course you all know I have canning supplies and jars, ha. I'm kind of excited about the potential for this! It will let me keep the mess outside for sure.
It would be great to spend the day outside canning, especially with stuff from our own garden! This picture, for those new to the blog is from a few years ago when we had a particularly great haul from the garden. I could wheel this around back, wash them in the sink and have all my ingredients ready for some fresh canning of veggies.
We bought two of these a few years back to use at the farm but were never sure where we wanted to put them. These are call "national park grills" or something like that, as they are the same manufacturer that supplies National parks and campgrounds with grills. Durable to be outside for years. They are put in the ground with concrete (like any pole, etc) and so we were thinking of putting them just off the concrete patio behind the gas grill so we can turn around and use these if we want to grill with mesquite wood or charcoal. We still have them in the boxes so they WILL finally find a home here.
As for future dreams/goals, we'd love to have a bread/pizza oven. Obviously, it can't be built against the house, but we could put it in that open space.
This is how we envision the space. The area with the counter space and grilling and canning is the actual concrete slab patio. The other red box is an area that we would like to make a sort of extension of this concrete space. Wooden deck? Pavers?
2nd Man even suggested we do something like this, so we have sort of have an extension of the "entertaining space" outside and also have a place to sit and have guests watch while grilling and maybe even additional outdoor seating beyond that.
It's one of those things they will build for us as we wanted, and then we'll have to decide how to maximize/utilize the space we are given.
We. Can't. Wait!
