MAKING OUTDOOR LIVING SPACES MORE ENJOYABLE WITH AN OUTDOOR COOKING AREA

by Arizona Custom Home Builder on November 11, 2009

Cooking Outdoors Offers So Many Options from A Basic Grill to Complete Outdoor Kitchen

Cooking outdoors has been done since the dark ages, but outdoor cooking has come a long way since the days of the ‘hunter and gatherer’. Today, the options for cooking in outdoor living spaces have become more sophisticated as technology allows for gas grills, gas-fired ovens, rotisseries, and al fresco stoves. Cooking devices can be portable and wheeled to the patio when needed or designed for a custom built masonry outdoor kitchen and grill areas. Cooking outdoors can be as simple as throwing a few brats on the grill to homemade pizza in an outdoor gas-fired oven.

If you’re considering installing an outdoor cooking area, and plan to hook up to your home’s gas lines, find out where those lines are. It can become quite expensive for a contractor to tie into your home’s gas lines if the home has not been pre-plumbed for an outdoor grill area or fireplace. As AZ custom home builders, we often pre-plumb gas lines to an outdoor area, so the customer can easily tie into these areas when they begin to work on their outdoor living spaces. If tying into a gas line is not an option, outdoor grills can be installed with portable gas tanks as well.

When planning an outdoor cooking area, you get the opportunity to design and customize the outdoor kitchen perfectly suited to your own tastes. Ask yourself what you will need based on your outdoor cooking habits.

Are you looking for an outdoor grill only?
Would you be interested in a built-in gravity smoker?
What about an outdoor refrigerator for those refreshments at outdoor parties?
Would you use an infrared burner for searing?
What about an outdoor stove, just for heating a side dish?
Would you like the grill to have an option for rotisserie cooking?
Would you like an outdoor oven for those homemade pizza party nights, or throwing in some foccacia bread to serve with dinner?
Would you want a sink or clean up area outdoors as well, or limit the design to an outdoor cooking area?

You can design outdoor living spaces for use as an entire kitchen or just cooking. There are so many choices that no setting, whether rustic or formal, classic or whimsical should be without a great outdoor cooking area that is easy to use and a great compliment to outdoor living spaces.