DIY Pizza Oven - Part 2

Wow, it's been a minute since we last talked about our DIY Pizza Oven progress. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we have started up our work again, but as I began writing this post I realized you guys aren't 100% caught up on the progress we had made before we took our winter hiatus. Let me catch you up... last time we talked (back in October) we had just finished forming the dome and were in the process of sanding the facade. It looked something like this....

After that we built-up the smokestack aka chimney, 28" high and it looked like this:

It was at this point that we retired our efforts for the year but during the winter months we tried out our pizza oven multiple times. The verdict? The pizzas were good and they were considerably better than the pizzas we were able to make in our 1st pizza oven, but they could be better.

The issue(s):

1. It was difficult to to get fires to light which we figured out was because the smokestack was not drawing enough smoke because it was too short.
2. The bottom of the pizza was not cooking as quickly as the top of the pizza. We think the reason is because the heat was being absorbed into the concrete instead of pushing out from it. 
3. The heat from the fire caused some minor cracking and heat was escaping through the cracks.  

Brent did a lot of research, mostly on-line and a little bit by eating/observing local pizza joints with wood burning pizza ovens (I was especially helpful during this part of the research process)  and came up with a game plan. A few weekends ago while I was touring southern mansions in Eufala, Alabama and Croix was playing with his aunt and uncle, Brent got to work ironing out some of the kinks. To start he added more bricks to the chimney taking it from 28" to 48" high.

To address the cracking and heat escape, Brent filled the cracks with fire mortar and then rolled on a ceramic fiber blanket. 

This particular material had great reviews and is specifically intended for wood stoves, pizza ovens, kilns, etc. The Internet suggested 3" or 3 layers of the insulation, but he felt like 2" or 2 layers was sufficient. As a point of reference, our pizza oven is just under 5 feet wide and it took us just under 3 boxes to cover the whole thing twice.

After the two layers of the insulation Brent wrapped the dome with chicken wire in preparation of the mortar application. 

Once the insulation and chicken wire was installed he spread cast able, insulating refractory mortar around the entire shell.

This step/material is great for a few reasons: 

A.) It helps the dome hold it's shape (i.e. cast able). 

B.) It helps keep the heat in (i.e. insulating)  

C.) Refractory means it won't crack or break under high heat. 

So basically, this little jewel solves a lot of our problems in one foul swoop!

At the end of this stage we will be ready to pull the trigger on the finish work for the facade of the pizza oven. We are moving right along and I just know I will be writing the title " DIY Pizza Oven REVEAL" soon!

All photos are my own. 

Our 2nd House - Year 1

Happy 1 year Anniversary to us and our 2nd home!

Here's a question: are you still allowed to refer to your house as "our new house" when you have lived there a year? I guess it just feels "new" to me because it looks almost exactly the way it did after we moved in last October.  While we have gotten some random momentum as of late, I often find myself feeling like such a slug when it comes to progress at the house. Here we are at the 1 year mark and we have made very little progress on the whole home improvement front especially as compared to the progress we made at our first house in the same amount of time. It's like, now that we have a house that we can actually stay in for a long, long time (forever?) I've found myself slow to commit to ideas or projects.  It's frustrating and exciting at the same time. I like that we are taking our time and thinking through things, but I also long to have a few rooms feel more complete and "us". We will get there I know, so in the meantime I thought it could be fun to acknowledge the progress we have made. Progress like...

Croix's Room:

OK, this was the first room we tackled upon moving in last Fall and for good reason! We were down to T-Minus 2 1/2 months until Croix's arrival when we moved in.

This is hands down the happiest room in our house and not just because of the tiny human that sleeps in that red crib. The space is bright, colorful and our one and only 100% completed space in the whole house.

Living Room:

This room has seen a fair amount of love this year. From new furniture and textiles like the giant sectional, Love Sac and rug, to new pendant lights  and a TV niche to our most recent add - some custom doors for the built-ins. Overall this space is really starting to come together and we are excited for all the progress we have made! Next up - curtains! 

Back Patio:

Oooooh the patio project. This guy has definitely taken up a LOT of our time, energy, sweat and first bites (croix and the concrete debacle) this year. We are still wrapping up final decisions but overall we are feeling good about this space. It has definitely come a long way and I'm happy to report not only are we grill ready at this point, but as of Monday night our pizza oven can make pizzas too!

Dining Room:

The progress in the dining room has been both mental and aesthetic for us this year. The wheels really started turning for us when we made the decision to turn this big open room into our dining room as opposed to the formal living room it was was for the previous owners. Since making that decision we had our dining room table custom made from a guy Brent found on Craigslist, scored these beautiful wing back chairs from Scotts Antique and inherited a beautiful 100+ year old mantle from my PapaJack and Grandmother. It's been slow, but I think this room could really be beautiful and rich with texture and history once it's all said and done.

We celebrated our 1 year anniversary this year by welcoming in some house guests - my sister Candace, her husband Jimmy and their pup-daughter Piper! They recently made the move to Atlanta and are staying with us while they house hunt! It's cool to have the house and driveway full and I'm excited to celebrate all the fun things ahead - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Croix' 1st Birthday with them right by our sides!

A lot has changed over the past year, but all in all we are proud of the progress we have made in the midst of our new normal (family of 3!) and can' t wait to see what all we can accomplish before year 2!

All photos are my own. 

Patio Project - Part 3

Last we talked we had just finished the fireplace and had concrete steps poured from the den to the patio. Before we could go any further we had to hire a company to come and move the gas line that was in the brick smoke hut. They pulled the line out of the back of the hut and then ran it along the back and side of the hut and down the wall to where we planned for the grill to sit. With the gas line in place we were ready to start the cabinetry! 

We measured and schemed and worked out our plan.....Cabinets would be installed to the left of the fireplace, all the way down the wall to the brick smoke hut. 

The concrete patio has settled over time and is not level, so when it came time to frame in for the cabinetry we had to really play with the framing to make certain the top would be level. 

We wanted the cabinetry run to include the grill, a place for The Big Green Egg, two storage cabinets and an open shelf area, so we worked out our spacing and got all of the openings framed up. 

With the cabinetry framing done, we were almost ready to start the countertops, but before we could, we had a few loose ends to tie up, starting with the fireplace flue...

Running the flue for the fireplace was a bit tricky. Normal chimneys would just go straight up, but because we plan to place the pizza oven directly over the fireplace this would not work. Instead we pitched the flue to funnel the smoke through the back of the pizza oven which would allow the smoke to roll through the cavity of the oven and out the chimney. 

Next up Brent went to work installing the missing pieces of the fence. You may remember the fence used to be curved, but because the pizza oven will sit in this location, we needed to square it off. 

Meanwhile I was busy painting. We went back and forth on what color pallet we wanted to use out here, but ultimately decided to keep with the color combo already used on the house - taupe and a creamy white. Having the fence patched and the new color scheme start to take shape was a big turning point for the patio aesthetically speaking. 

Finally we were ready to get started on our concrete countertops. We made up a form and decided to get fancy and add a little extra wood detail in the middle of the edge (you will be able to see this more clearly later). 

What happened next = one of the most exhausting days...ever. Too dramatic? Maybe, but 

I can say with absolute certainty that concrete is officially our frenemy. 

Sooooooo it took 46 80 pound bags of concrete to do this countertop. If you know anything about concrete you know that not only is it messy, but when working with it, one has to move relatively quickly because it dries fast. At first it was just Brent and I going at it on our own.  We were just 2 or 3 bags in and I was certain I might die. Luckily, like an angel dropped down from heaven, Brent's brother Scott showed up and helped us. 

Carry heavy bag of concrete, dump heavy bag full of dusty concrete into tub, spray with water, stir around with shovel, pick up tub and dump wet concrete atop the cabinets. Over and over and over and over again x 46. 

It was brutal. 

At the very end, after Scott had left, we wanted to put our hand prints in the top. By this point Croix was getting cranky and was ready for his bath, bottle, bed routine. Brent and I were exhausted and covered in concrete dust, but if we wanted to do this we had to do it then before the concrete dried. Concrete is just totally unreasonable like that. ;) Brent did his hand first, then we did mine and then I carried Croix over to do his....we smushed his hand into the concrete and as soon as we lifted it out he shoved it right in his mouth. Yep, Croix ate concrete. He has never even eaten a piece of real food but he has eaten concrete. #parentsoftheyear Of course we immediately yanked his hand out of his mouth, but it was just the most appropriate ending to a grueling day. 

We let the concrete sit for several days and when we went to remove the form we were very happy to see this: 

And a close up of the wood detail:

We have a little sanding to do, but overall we are really happy with the end results. So much so in fact that the misery of that concrete filled day has disappeared and we have found ourselves friends with concrete yet again.

With the framework in place and the messy annoying tasks behind us it's finally time to get to the pretty stuff!

All photos are my own. 

Patio Project - Part 2

Last we talked we were in the thick of the demo phase and since then there has been a lot of concrete dust,  concrete lifting (ouch), math that makes my head hurt and progress...sweet, sweet progress. It really helped to get all of the clutter cleared out so we could start with a nice clean slate to really dig into the details of the new vision. One thing we knew for sure was the pizza oven was going to be the center point of our new patio plan, not because it is necessarily the favorite, but because it will literally sit in the middle, so we decided to start there and work our way out. As you saw a few weeks ago, the existing patio/fence has an angled bump out in the corner which was weird and random ,but strangely enough the perfect spot for the pizza oven.

The pizza oven itself will actually sit atop the existing angled concrete wall, so the first step was to remove the wood fence in this area. Our property actually goes back a bit behind the fence so once the pizza oven is built we will square off the fence behind it.

Next, we used cinder blocks to create the structure for the base of the pizza oven. The structure is 72" wide and 36" high.  The overall size of the structure was determined based off the fact that we want the pizza oven itself to be around 48" wide on the inside. We came up with a system where I applied the mortar and then Brent followed behind me with the cinder blocks.

It moved pretty fast and before we knew it we had our walls. 

Because the pizza oven is so large this time, we decided we wanted to create a fireplace underneath. Last time we left this space open below for wood, which was cool, but because this pizza oven is so much bigger we thought it would be a better use of the space to utilize it in this way. 

For the opening of the fire place, we had to make our form to pour the concrete arch. We stacked up two pieces of plywood and then drew out an arch on the top piece. The size of our arch was determined by the size we wanted the fireplace opening (24" high x 30" wide). Brent clamped the two pieces of plywood together so he could cut the arch out of both pieces at the same time. 

The form needed to be 8" wide (the size of the short side of a cinder block) so we took our pieces and nailed them together with spacers to create the form. To set the form of the actual arch we put a piece of sheet metal across the bottom arch, which we had just cut out. 

Once together, the arch form was set in place between the walls of our cinder block structure and Brent and Adam poured concrete inside. 

We let the concrete set for 2 days and then we removed the forms and......

BOOM! 

Next we framed out the inside walls of the fireplace; again using cinder blocks to create the walls. We left a hole in the back for the flue. We had to make sure the flue was pitched so the smoke would go out the back and not out the front hole of the fireplace, which was a bit tricky but we were able to accomplish using plywood forms.

Once the walls were up and the flue forms were set up we got got another couple hundred (exaggeration) bags of heavy, dusty concrete and poured the top. 

Here is a shot of the top....

And here is a shot inside the fireplace with a glimpse at the flue opening.

During this same time we decided to hire a crew to help us out with some grading and to pour the concrete for the new steps. 

Brent and I had to jet away for a quick over night trip on the big concrete day, so my sister and brother-in-law were in town to watch Croix Boy for the night. They were busy tending to his cute self so they enlisted Piper to keep watch over the progress outside. 

When Brent and I got home the next day we were super excited to see this:

We designed the top step to be longer than the rest to create a bench for additional seating. We are so happy with how this turned out! It's crazy what a difference removing the deck and adding these steps make. It's also crazy what a 3 man crew can achieve in 6 hours. If Brent and I had attempted this work we would probably have it completed by the time Croix goes to kindergarten...MAYBE... DIY is great and all but you definitely have to recognize your limits and concrete + steps = ours. 

We made even more progress this past weekend but I will save that for my next post so as to save my wrists from carpal tunnel. :)

All photos are my own.