Rustic Barn Wood Adds Character to Outdoor Kitchen

Reclaimed barn wood has been a popular medium for projects around the home for a few years now. People are using it on walls, building furniture, and using it to create unique pieces of art work. Why not use it on an outdoor kitchen? I was excited to find out my customer wanted to use a combination of natural stone and reclaimed barn wood for the outdoor kitchen area in their backyard. I love when people take some risk and get away from the normal materials that are typically used for outdoor kitchens and fireplaces.

There were a lot of elements we had to consider when designing this outdoor kitchen area The outdoor kitchen is in Wayzata MN on an acreage lot so we could make it as big as we wanted with the only stipulation that it could not be too tall, at the customers request. So I had to design an outdoor fireplace that looked good but was a bit shorter than I normally build. I decided to widen the firebox and the base of the fireplace to give the outdoor fireplace a stocky look and the feel that it is a larger fireplace. The overall length of the entire structure is twenty four feet. We used all of that space! We put in a wood fired pizza oven with wood storage underneath and behind the sliding barn wood doors. We also designed storage area underneath the big green egg.

We wanted to use a sliding door system for the look and functionality. We wanted to be able to slide the door to either side to avoid having a swinging door in the way as you cook. We used copper rod with steel rollers We want the steel to rust and the copper to oxidize which will give the rustic final look. It will take some time for that to actually happen so I have no pictures of what that will end up looking like. In the picture, where it looks like a set of drawers, that is actually a refrigerator that pulls out like a drawer and has the look of a rustic barn wood drawer. The set next the the big green egg is the refrigerator and the other set next to the pizza oven is actually a warming drawer for your food or warm towels for the pool that is next to the outdoor kitchen. This outdoor kitchen is rustic and we wanted it to look like its old so we couldn't just put on polished granite countertops. That would be too shiny and nice for the rustic look of this outdoor living space. So we took black granite and put a diamond 10 textured surface on it which took off the shiny finish. The texture is like a split rock. It feels textured to the touch and looks rough but it is still flat. It's a very nice surface.

We put some doors on the backside of the outdoor kitchen so that we can access the storage areas and fill it up with wood without having to get into the sitting/pool area. We made custom reclaimed barn wood doors. The single door houses all the electrical components for the recepticles, water fountains, and the under the counter lighting (pictures to come). It also houses the propane tank for the torch used to start the pizza oven and fireplace. Pretty cool stuff. I hope you enjoyed the information.