Photo courtesy: Lanchester Grill and Hearth
When spring fever sets in, the urge to spend our time living outdoors is palpable. It’s when we dust off the grills, unwrap the patio furniture, and escape from the pent-up feeling created by too many months trapped inside.
We want to cook outdoors, eat outdoors, entertain ourselves and our friends outdoors.
Which is why the boom in creating outdoor living spaces shows no signs of abating.
Designing an outdoor kitchen to feed and entertain friends and family from spring to fall can be a cheaper option than building an addition to your home.
“This way you’re expanding your living space for a fraction of the cost of putting a room onto your house,” says Dale Sites of Kitchens Inside and Out in Cleona (717-269-7031; www.kitchensinsideandout.com). “It’s an affordable option and the possibilities are endless. You can do anything outdoors that you have indoors.”
Sites, who specializes in creating cabinetry with marine grade finishes to weather the weather, says a basic outdoor kitchen can be had for about 10,000 dollars, leaving room for upgrades as your budget allows.
“You want to at least put in a decent grill and a work surface to start,” he says. “To have it function the way it should, add in a refrigerator, dishwasher and stove. From there, it’s really endless what you can do, from warming drawers to freezers.”
Designing an outdoor kitchen can be a cheaper option than building an addition to your home
If you’re ready to graduate from that afterthought of a grill pushed to the side of your deck to a kitchen entertainment center, an easy, affordable upgrade is to create an island.
“That’s a good place to start, with a grill, a sink, and a big enough countertop for food prep and serving,” says Swartz Kitchens and Baths designer Susan Chwan of Harrisburg (717-652-7111; www.swartzkitchens.com). “You can make the island big enough to pull up barstools so you can have seating close to the cooking.”
Just like an indoor space, where guests tend to congregate in the kitchen, it’s important to create conversation areas near the chef.
Chwan also stresses that a key to a good outdoor kitchen design is to have clean-up and storage spaces to avoid numerous trips back and forth from outdoor to indoor kitchens.
“It’s all about functionality,” she says.
Which is why she believes that a prep sink and at least a bar refrigerator are essentials, even in the most modest outdoor kitchen designs.
“They’re the mainstays,” she says. “You can add in microwaves and icemakers and beer kegs according to what’s essential for how you entertain.”
Cabinets for outdoor place settings, serving ware and table decorations, as well as drawers for cooking utensils and pantry ingredients, streamline entertaining outdoors and can be designed into the simplest island layout. And having a pull-out wastebasket helps keep party poopers like yellow jackets at bay.
For Sites, the key is to design so that “everything is at your fingertips.”
“You don’t have to be at a loss,” says Sites, adding that a well-designed outdoor kitchen will function just as a well-designed indoor kitchen, with the added benefit of unlimited space to accommodate crowds.
And best of all, an outdoor party makes for easier clean-up.
“Outdoor cabinets are so durable that you can scrub and hose them down,” Chawn says, noting that woods like teak and cypress tend to be the most popular choices for outdoor applications.
Chwan likes to top these island designs with weather-hardy natural stone surfaces like granite.
Although outdoor kitchens can tend toward the “tikibar look,” Chwan says homeowners should consider carrying elements of their indoor design outside for a more seamless extension of their living space.
When you’re ready to upgrade, it’s important to determine how you want the space to function.
“When I talk to customers, I try to find out what they typically cook and for how many people,” says Sam Stoltzfus of LanChester Grill & Hearth in Gap (717-442-8794; www.lanchestergh.com). "Then I ask what they’d like to cook that they don’t now. I try to stretch their imagination, asking, ‘What if you could cook things you might not have thought of, like pizzas or cupcakes or cookies?’” Stoltzfus is in the process of revamping his own outdoor kitchen space, with a makeshift collection of grills on his back deck that he’s pulling together in a cohesive whole.
“I have a Big Green Egg, which I love; a wood pellet smoker, which my boys love; and a gas grill with a griddle so I can make pancakes, eggs, and bacon,” he says. “They were all lined up in their stands, taking up lots of room.”
He says an economical way to change this set-up is to take them all out of their stands, discard the side shelves, and build them all into a long countertop that will function as a prep and cooking space. Underneath, there’s room for cabinets and drawers, as well as a place for a refrigerator and sink.
“You can have all of this in the same amount of space, just by fabricating a work station on your deck,” he says. “Just these little changes can make such a difference.”
Stoltzfus has created a niche to his grill business by custom fabricating such kitchen spaces, especially designed for existing decks. He likes topping them with concrete countertops, locally created to look like granite, “but you spend 30 percent less.”
In designing the outdoor kitchen, homeowners should also think about exposure to the elements, in case they’d like to add a trellis or pergola for shade, or a firepit to extend the season in cooler months.
And plans should also take into consideration the landscape, from the views guests see when they’re dining to potential ingredients that could be planted close at hand for the chefs.
Creating an alfresco space helps homeowners make the most of the warmer months.
“For entertaining, there’s nothing like it,” adds Sites.
