Outdoor kitchen with built-in grill, counter and lighting

Outdoor living · 6 min read

Planning an outdoor kitchen that actually gets used

The ones that go unused are rarely under-equipped. They are usually badly placed, short on counter, or dark by eight o'clock.

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Introduction

An outdoor kitchen is one of the larger things you can add to a garden, and it is the one where the gap between the good ones and the disappointing ones is widest. The disappointing ones are rarely short of equipment. They are short of the boring things: somewhere to put a plate down, shade at the time of day you actually cook, and light after sunset.

(01)

Place it where people already are

The instinct is to put the kitchen at the far end of the garden, where there is room. That is usually a mistake. Cooking is sociable, and a cook stranded thirty feet from everyone else stops using the thing.

Put it at the edge of where people gather, not beyond it. Close enough to the house that carrying things out is not a trek — you will still need the fridge indoors more often than you think.

(02)

Counter space is the thing people under-build

Ask anyone who cooks: the grill is not the constraint, the landing space is. You need somewhere to put raw food going on, cooked food coming off, tools, plates and a drink, all at once.

The rule we work to is counter on both sides of the grill, not just one. It is the least glamorous line in the budget and the one that decides whether the kitchen is pleasant to use.

Landing space either side of the grill, not one side
A prep run long enough for a chopping board and a tray
Somewhere for a drink that is not the cooking surface
Storage that keeps tools out there, not in the garage

(03)

Sort the utilities before anything is built

Gas, power and water all have to be run before the masonry goes up and before the <a href="/paver-patios">patio surface</a> is laid. Retrofitting any of them means opening up finished work.

Even if you are not installing a sink or a fridge now, running a conduit while the trench is open costs very little. Not running it costs a great deal later.

(04)

Shade, wind and where the smoke goes

Two practical things that get missed.

Sun: a west-facing kitchen is unusable on a summer afternoon without shade. That is what a <a href="/outdoor-structures">pergola or pavilion</a> is for, and it is far cheaper to plan it in than to add it once the counters are set.

Smoke: note the prevailing wind before fixing the grill position, so you are not smoking out the seating area every time you cook.

(05)

Light it, or you lose it at eight o'clock

A kitchen you cannot see in is a kitchen you stop using the moment the evenings draw in. Task lighting over the working surface, softer light over the seating, and conduit run before the surface goes down.

This is the single cheapest thing that extends how many months a year the space gets used.

(06)

Build it to survive a Carolina winter

Outdoor kitchens here need to handle freeze-thaw. That means proper footings below the surface rather than a structure sitting on a slab, appropriate materials at the counter, and any water line able to be drained down for winter.

We build these as <a href="/stone-and-brick-masonry">masonry structures</a> for that reason — they are part of the hardscape, not furniture placed on it.

(07) Questions

Asked often.

How close to the house can an outdoor kitchen be? +

Close is generally good for usability, but clearances around a grill and any covered structure need to be right. We work that out on site rather than by rule of thumb.

Do I need a sink out there? +

Plenty of good kitchens do not have one. If the house door is a few steps away, a sink is often a luxury. Run the water line anyway while the ground is open — adding it later is the expensive part.

Can an outdoor kitchen be added to an existing patio? +

Often yes, but it depends on what is under the patio. A kitchen needs footings, and that usually means opening up part of the existing surface. We would rather assess that than guess.

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