Planning an Outdoor Kitchen

Monday, June 25, 2012

Source: Gardendesign.com

Why do bad outdoor kitchens happen to good people? It's a question I ask myself every time I walk around otherwise gorgeous residential landscapes and see poorly planned grill islands, view-obscuring pizza ovens, and homely rows of unnecessary appliances. It's a question I ask myself when I stand in front of the grill at my own family's vacation house and can't find a place to put a spatula, let alone a plate of food. As editor of this magazine, I've seen enough bad outdoor kitchens that they now fall into recognizable categories for me, including something I call the Mushroom, that oversize island that looks like it appeared suddenly after a heavy rain; the Utterly Inadequate, which is epitomized by my family's Weber standing all by itself on our big back terrace; and the Full Vegas, a category that doesn't really need an explanation, except that the words "retractable television" are often involved.

I can recognize a bad kitchen, but that doesn't mean I know how to design a good one. To help me understand how, I turned to people who do. Here's what I learned from Russ Faulk, vice president of product development at Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, a company that makes grills and other appliances; Eric Groft, principal at the landscape architecture firm Oehme van Sweden; and Mark Scott, principal at his own landscape architecture firm, Mark Scott Associates.

1. Plan, Plan, Plan All three experts agree that poor planning explains most badly executed outdoor kitchens. "It's almost like some landscape designers are annoyed by having to put in a kitchen and it becomes this thing that gets shoved in the corner," says Faulk. "They're left as an afterthought, and then the budget is limited," adds Groft.   

2.  Make It a Group Effort Layouts, utilities, countertop choices - installing an outdoor kitchen is complicated, but too often the entire project is left to a single designer or builder. "You want a dialogue between the homeowner, landscape architect, builder, and appliance person," says Faulk. Scott sits down with everybody in the household and quizzes them: "How do you envision yourself using the space? What will you cook?" Kalamazoo gives clients a 21-point questionnaire. "Most people don't know what size sink they want until you talk through what they'll do with it," says Faulk.

3.  Keep Abreast Appliance features change dramatically from year to year. Make sure you, or somebody who is helping you, have a firm grasp of what's available. "A designer said to me recently that her client didn't want an outdoor fridge because she didn't want to have to bring it inside during winter," says Faulk. "The only thing you have to do to winterize our fridge is turn it off. So she wasn't familiar with the technology."

4. Look Around "Take clues from the landscape," says Groft. "The materials you use should be dictated by the home and its surroundings." Faulk agrees, "The best way to blend in a new kitchen is to build it with the same trim and stone that are used on the house and in the landscape." And beware inexpensive solutions. "Stucco is cheap, and builders love it because it's easy to use," says Faulk. "But if the only place you have stucco is on your outdoor kitchen, it's going to stick out."

5. Think Proportion "If you have a large home and a tiny exterior kitchen, it can look like a wart on an elephant," says Faulk. The opposite can also be a problem. "Don't let counters get too big," Scott says. "A long counter has the same [volume] as a Volkswagen. If the transitioning [from the home to the outdoor kitchen] is not done well, it will look like a beached whale." Smart designers incorporate numerous structural elements to make a kitchen fit into its surroundings, including pergolas, screens, and plantings.

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