Outdoor Kitchen Part 2

I'm backkkkkk and excited to pick up where I left off last week...

Once the countertop prep was complete it was time to start pouring the concrete. Using a wheel-barrow the concrete was mixed with water by surprise, surprise - a shirtless Shearer brother. 

The concrete process began on the far left side of the space which was the easiest side with no areas to work around.  

Essentially, blobs of concrete were dumped on the top and then spread smooth.

As the guys made their way to the far right side of the structure there was the Big Green Egg to contend with. We wrapped him in some insulation surrounded by metal sheathing to provide a gap between the concrete and the Big Green Egg as the concrete dried. This material also helped protect the BGE as we poured and spread concrete around him. 

Mix, dump, smooth, mix dump, smooth.......

Of course Luke was always close by monitoring our progress, mistaking pieces of wood for bones and trying to stay as far away from the water hose as possible. Hey Luke!

Once the concrete was poured, we let it sit for a couple of days.

Once dry, it was time to remove the wood template surround. 

Using his drill Brent removed the screws from the wood framing.

And then carefully pulled the wood framing free from the countertops. He did this along all edges of the counter surface.  

Once all of the wood was removed we had concrete countertops and suddenly it felt much more like an outdoor kitchen.

Before we moved into the next phase, Brent installed the grill into it's opening.

Finally it was time to finish the exterior. We considered several facade options but ultimately decided we wanted to go with a mix of cedar planks and stack stone.  The cedar siding would cover all parts except for the brick oven area which would be stack stone. Brent took some measurements and cut each plank to size. 

Then, I took the planks and stained the back of each piece before it was installed. 

We chose a Minwax stain which would not only pretty the planks up, but would seal the wood. We thought staining both sides would add double protection.

Once the back of each piece was stained, Brent installed each plank using his nail gun. 

And then I went to brushing the stain onto the fronts. 

In the midst of all the cutting and staining, we took a mini break and Brent put the stainless steel doors back on the grill which of course made such a difference and made the finish line seem closer and closer. 

The back of the outdoor kitchen was finished just like the front which got a little tricky as Brent had to measure and install the planks through the rails. 

Planks were even added to the Big Green Egg's hole.

The hole to the left of the grill was to be the cabinet for all of the grilling tools, so it needed a door to enclose everything. 

Again Brent measured and cut some wood for the frame of the door. 

He created his frame.

And then added planks to the front. 

Once all of the planks were installed he added the cabinet hinges.

And wah-lah - a door!

A little stain and a cute piece of hardware later and we were looking pretty good!

Somewhere between staining and making the door we took another break to revisit our concrete countertops. We were really happy with the overall outcome of the countertops but felt like the surface could be a little smoother. As you can see from the photo below the surface was rough, with pits and uneven spots. 

Not sure if you knew this or not but I'm a major blog reader myself and one of my favorite blogs, Little Green Notebook recently posted about a project where she used this product called Ardex which is a concrete overlay. She used the product over her laminate countertops. The results were awesome, so we figured we could use the same product over our concrete, just to smooth it out. 

We mixed the powder with water and poured it over our concrete. 

The material is super fine and easy to spread. 

We applied one coat, let it dry overnight and then went over it again the next day. 

We used a paint brush for the edges and then had some fun going over the whole thing once more, adding some texture with brush strokes. 

We were very happy with end results and while it was a little extra work we think it was worth it for the smoother finish.

Once all of the siding was installed and our countertops were smooth, Brent got started on the stack stone. At first Brent went to town stacking stone after stone but with one small hit of the hammer all of them collapsed. It was truly so sad. So, then we kind of decided we needed to do one row of stone a day, let that dry and then add another the next day. There may be a better way to go about this, but this plan has been working for us. 

So, there you have it - outdoor kitchen phase 2. What a difference right? We are working on the pizza oven now, come back next week to see the final results, you won't believe it!

All photos are my own. 

Homemade Bar

A few months ago we were riding around when we passed an antique store we had been in a few times. We decided to pull in and see what was new. As we got out of the car we saw this cool armoire sitting outside in front of the store. We checked it out and found it was an old TV cabinet with drawers and a turn table for the television inside.

The finish on the piece was really cool and it had these pretty metal X's in each frame of the door. The storage capacity was great in that there were three drawers, open shelves and a large open area at the top that Brent knew he could fill in with more shelves, depending on what we wanted to store in there. Overall it was a pretty nice piece, but would need some TLC to clean it up a bit. We weren't sure exactly what we would do with it but it seemed like a piece we could definitely use, in our living room, in a guest bedroom, somewhere.

So, we did the haggle dance for a few minutes and ended up buying the piece for $125 dollars.

We loaded her up and we were on our way. 

This was right in the middle of our major renovations so the piece sat in our solarium for months while we worked on the house. Every now and then we would admire the piece and talk about what we would do with it. Then, one day Brent had the brilliant idea to turn it into a bar. At the time we were in the thick of finalizing our cabinetry layout in the kitchen and we both realized we would not have a lot of extra space in the kitchen. In fact, we knew we would be storing a lot of our dishes in a china cabinet, so there definitely wouldn't be room for bar ware and alcohol in our kitchen cabinets. 

So, we held on to the bar idea and went on with our renovations. After we started moving furniture into the house we decided the armoire/bar would go in the living room and would flank the door heading into the solarium which leads to the deck. We figured when we entertain it would be nice to have the bar set up in the living room so everyone can have easy access whether they were over for a cookout on the deck or watching a UGA game in the living room. And when entertaining was not going on we would keep it closed and it would just be a nice piece of furniture to add to our space.

Now that we found the piece a home in our living room it was time for project re purpose TV cabinet into Bar. 

It started out like this:

We wanted to cover up the back of the piece with a mirror, not only to cover up the hole, but to give the piece some depth. We lucked out and found a piece of plate glass mirror at Home Depot that was the size we needed.  Brent covered the back of the armoire and the back of the glass with Liquid Nails. 

                                                     

                                                    

   and set the mirror in place. 

                                               

Once the mirror was in place it was time to frame it out. We bought some little rosettes and fluting at Home Depot. 

And Brent installed them around the plate glass mirror to create a frame. 

Because this piece needed to look as good open as it does closed we wanted to jazz up the frame a bit so we applied a nice gray stain that we thought would compliment the interior of the cabinet nicely.

We got a little stain happy and decided to paint the turn table as well. 

Wah lah! Isn't the contrast nice?

Our next step was to add some pieces to enhance the storage and make this piece look more like a bar. First we installed wine holders on each side of the cabinet. I was afraid adding these would make the bar top area seem crowded, but I was happy to see the space was still nice and open after these pieces were installed and our wine was in place.

 We ordered some wine glass holders and installed them on the top of the inside of the cabinet. 

Several of our friends and family members gave us wine glasses for wedding gifts, and now we have the perfect place to display and store them. 

We went to work organizing and storing bottles of various liquor and mixers on the shelves below.

Wait, I'm not finished yet.

What happened next was all Brent. As if turning this cabinet into a bar was not enough, we had to  take it to the next level. It all started one day when he put a dibs on one of the drawers.

Urban Dictionary's definition of Dibs:

"Dibs - the most powerful force in the universe, it is used to call possession of a certain object or idea. There are very few things that trump dibs." 

We had plans to store coasters, coozies, aerators, etc...in some of the drawers, but didn't have an exact plan for all of them. But all that changed the day Brent decided to turn one of the drawers into a humidor for his cigars. Yes, a humidor. By the time he mentioned the idea to me he had it all planned out in his head.

He took the measurements of the drawer and lined the inside walls and bottom with cedar wood. 

Next he cut a top for his drawer humidor. 

Once the top was in place it was time to add hinges and hardware.

And finally he stained the inside of the box using the same finish we used on the mirror frame and the turn table. 

How cool is that? He's crafty that Brent.

The humidor/drawer is the first drawer in the stack and such a genius use of the space. I'd say we got our money's worth out of this piece of furniture. We've tried the bar out a few times and it works well. We still have a decent amount of space left inside some of the drawers and the shelves. It's crazy how exciting it is to be organized, even if it's only party gear organization, it counts :) CHEERS!

All photos are my own.