Pizza Pizza

IT WORKS!

Our Pizza oven finally makes the perfect wood fire pizza!

Photo via Sometimes I Draw Things

It has been nearly a year since I last checked in with an update on the pizza oven. Last we chatted, I filled you guys in on a few of our dilemmas, the main one being...the pizza oven looked legit but the pizzas were not cooking evenly. The edges and top of the pizzas would be close to burned while the center would remain doughy. Over the course of a year we increased the height of the chimney, added a ceramic fiber blanket and most recently laid pizza stone tiles across the floor.

On top of that we considered it was possible the pizza oven just needed to heat up longer before we attempted to cook anything inside. However, regardless of how early we lit the fire, the oven itself would get to 600-700 degrees but the floor would only be about 400.

A few Sundays ago we decided to buckle down and figure this thing out once and for all. Brent started the fire around 10:00 a.m. Back inside he made two different doughs and some homemade pizza sauce. Around 2:30 the first pizza went in. Out it came 10 minutes later, with similar results. Soft bottom, doughy middle and near burnt top. Over the next 5 tries we played with increasing the fire, decreasing the fire and letting the overall oven heat up more but nothing seemed to work.

Finally Brent did what any red-blooded american millennial would do and googled it. And just like that the answer to our year long quest for perfect pizza was found in a video titled something like " Is your pizza oven floor not getting hot?" The trick? Are you ready for it?

Build the fire directly on top of where you will be cooking!

Then after a short time, move fire over to the side and place pizza where the fires was just sitting. This rapidly heats up the floor/cooking surface, bringing it to 700 degrees (approximately), consistent with the rest of the oven.... then.... 90 seconds later...POOF...the perfect pizza, cooked evenly and deliciously through and through. It's so obvious.... the hottest part of the floor would be where the fire was sitting. How did we not think of this?! It was equal parts embarrassing and thrilling, but mostly thrilling because now our pizza oven works!

I realize this is not a post filled with beautiful imagery, but you guys have been along for this ride so I wanted to share the good news. I also wanted to document the "how to" here in hopes that someone else, just getting started on a DIY pizza oven can be spared the long road of trial and error and just zip right to the part where they were enjoying yummy pizza!

All images are my own

Chit Chat ((August 17'))

August has been a busy month so far! Last week we had work + life the first half of the week and then on to a little family trip to Texas. My brother-in-law Jimmy's Mimi had a 90th birthday in Houston on Saturday, so we made a fun trip out of it by adding on San Antonio, Austin and Waco. This was my first time to visit Texas so I was all about seeing as much as possible in our short time. Each city was cool and fun in it's own way from the Alamo and River Walk in San Antonio to some delicious food and bats in Austin (yes, bats - google it!) to the charm that is Magnolia in Waco and finally a birthday party in Houston for the cutest 90 year old I know. We had a great time but we were excited to get back to Atlanta to see our little Croix Boy!

19 months old.

We did a LOT of walking in Texas and I wore these shoes every day. I brought tennis shoes as a back up in case my feet needed a break, but the sandals were comfortable and my feet were stylish and happy the whole time. For $49.50 that's a win.

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Before we get off the Texas subject we HAVE to discuss Magnolia. Are you guys Fixer Upper Fans? To be honest, I'm a new fan as I don't watch a ton of HGTV, but my Mother-In-Law, Cindy gave me their book for Mothers Day and I loved it. After that we started watching the show and Brent and I both really enjoy it. We were all super excited for the Waco portion of our trip and I'm happy to report that all things Magnolia did not disappoint. We got cupcakes at the bakery, shopped at the store, toured around the Seed & Feed, kicked a ball on the lawn and took a ton of pictures. It's just a happy place that is so well done and layered in consideration and inspiration.

The store was full of all kinds of good stuff and I was pleasantly surprised at how reasonably priced it was. It was hot and it was crowded but it was worth the drive and somewhere I would definitely recommend going if you get the chance.

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Let's talk food for a minute. Do you guys like pizza? If so, you need to try Varuni Napoli in Atlanta.

This place is not new, but it is easily our favorite pizza joint in the city. The pizza is made to order in a wood burning oven and it's the closest thing to the real deal italian pizza I have tasted here in Atlanta. Sometimes Brent and I go here, sit at the bar and watch them make the pizza, mentally taking notes in hopes the same tasty results will one day come out of our pizza oven.

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I found out about a little trick on Pinterest and now I have found myself using the site more than ever. Obviously Pinterest is a great place to get inspiration and ideas for anything and everything; house projects, outfits, workouts, recipes, costumes, etc. They have it all. But my biggest qualm with the site was you never could figure out where anything was from. Before, if you like a paint color, a piece of hardware, an earring, etc...you could click the picture and it may take you to a retail site, a blog, or just nowhere but often times I could never figure out where I could get what I was seeing and liking. It was frustrating and really turned me off from the site all together. But THEN I learned this trick....

Ok, we are going to use this pin of our dining room from our first house as an example.

So you are perusing Pinterest and you see this picture and really like the horse head on the table. It's just what you have been looking for! So you click the photo and it enlarges the image like this:

Now, do you see the little white square in the top right corner of the picture? If you click that a croppable square will appear that you can drag around the photo and then crop in around the element you want to know more about.....

Here you can see I have cropped around the horse head and now all kind of similar items are popping up on the right side.

How cool is that!? You're welcome in advance! 

Unless otherwise noted all photos are my own. 

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. 

Adding a Little Cracked Pepper to Our Outdoor Kitchen

We took a nice long break from our work on the patio project. It sounds so dramatic to say we got burned out, but I think we did. Not only is this project big, but it's messy, time consuming and expensive! Most free weekends last spring/summer were spent working on this project and by early fall we were TIRED. So, we took a long winters rest and now we are starting to feel motivated to get started up again. But before we crack into the heavy lifting we feel compelled to correct a mistake (ish) we made in terms of color. You may remember we opted to paint the back fence/wall the same color as the house (a light taupe) and the brick + front facing fence the same color as the trim (white).

While we liked the look, the white brick is not so white anymore from the smoke that comes from actually using the pizza oven. Yes, the pizza oven is functional even though it's not pretty and we have used it numerous times and each time we do the white brick gets less and less white.

It just looks dirty and it's obvious it's only going to get worse the more we use the outdoor kitchen. So, we decided painting the brick a dark color was the way to go. I wanted something dark, but not jet black. After bringing home a few samples we landed on Cracked Pepper by Behr. It's a deep charcoal with a hint of blue. While Croix napped on Sunday afternoon, I got busy and painted most of the brick. I left the meticulous painting (edges) to Brent, so you can still see bits of the white popping out but I think I like this direction....

What do you guys think? 

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. 

DIY Pizza Oven - Part 1

Well, our outdoor patio project is dragging rolling along.

Let me start by saying I realize we have been talking about this project for a long, long time, but guys WE HAVE A PIZZA OVEN!!!!!!!! And a gigantic pizza oven at that. Let's dig into the process...

To get things started we drew out a 54" diameter right on the concrete countertop with a pencil to be sure the scale felt right. Then, we started lining our pencil marks with bricks. 

We stacked a few levels up and then created the forms for the entry. We wanted the arch of the entry to mimic the arch of the fireplace below.

Once our entry form was in place we began setting the bricks around it. 

We continued adding layers and layers of brick to create the walls of the oven. As we got higher we had to use shims to create the pitch. 

The steeper the pitch the slower the process, because we could only do so many layers before we had to pause and let the mortar dry.

Eventually the pitch got so steep that we had to reinforce the arch with flexible trim. 

After that we continued adding brick until the entire dome was filled in. Once all of the brick was installed we filled all of the holes with mortar so the smoke would be forced to exit through the chimney. 

With all of the mortar dry we began sanding down the exterior as well as the interior of the pizza oven. This meant smoothing down all of the mortar drips and uneven spots. At one point Brent was more than half way in the oven working on the inside and Croix was REALLY loving the sight! Ha! We often talk about how much things have changed now that Croix has joined our crew. While we may move slower than we used to, it's a lot of fun having this little guy buzzing around our projects with us. He's distracting and needy, but he's cute! :)

We are still in the sanding phase and then we have to figure out what material to use on the outside facade. We have considered brick. tile and stucco but we are still undecided. The good news? Once we get a chimney on there the pizza oven will be usable even if the facade is still TBD for a few more weeks. My stomach is growling just thinking about it!!

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.