An outdoor kitchen makes outdoor entertaining and your daily life more enjoyable. It also expands your living space and increases the value of your home. However, outdoor kitchens can also be expensive and challenging to build, depending on the need for water and electricity.
A DIY outdoor kitchen is a great way to save money on home improvement and create a truly custom space designed for your needs. Here are some of the best outdoor kitchen ideas.
DIY Outdoor Kitchen Ideas
Build a DIY Outdoor Pizza Oven
Building a DIY wood-fired pizza oven is a fantastic project for your outdoor kitchen. A wood-fired oven allows you to cook delicious pizzas, breads, and other baked goods with authentic, incredible flavors.
A pizza oven is also an excellent addition to your outdoor space because it doubles as a fireplace, creating light and heat and the comforting smell of wood smoke even when you aren’t cooking in it.
These projects are beginner-friendly because working with bricks and mortar is affordable, easy to understand, and doesn’t require expensive tools or equipment.
Add DIY Outdoor Countertops
For serious outdoor cooking, you need working space. Even when an outdoor grill comes with built-in counters and staging areas, it’s never enough. For outdoor kitchens with a kamado grill or chimeneas, additional workspace is essential.
Adding DIY food prep areas and countertops makes your space more functional and versatile. If you don’t want to build an entire DIY outdoor food prep area, consider building a work cart with a butcher block top to create more working space with less complexity.
Add DIY Bar Seating
If you are adding DIY countertops or food prep space to your outdoor kitchen, it is incredibly easy to add a DIY bar or counter seating at the same time. To create DIY bar seating, simply make your countertops deeper than necessary to create a surface and seating area on the opposite side.
You can then DIY or buy outdoor bar stools to add flexible, comfortable seating to your outdoor kitchen.
Install an Ice Chest or Cooler
While not everyone has space or budget for an outdoor refrigerator, everyone can afford a cooler or ice chest. Having an ice chest allows you to keep beverages cold and ready to serve and preserve meats and vegetables fresh and ready for the grill.
There are hundreds of fantastic ice chest outdoor kitchen DIY projects; it’s impossible to choose the best one. People are incorporating built-in ice chests into patio tables, outdoor bars, and food prep areas. Some even decide to build cold storage into chair arms.
Ice chests are available in a vast range of sizes, shapes, and materials, ranging from traditional coolers that can easily be added to a bar cart or fancy restaurant-style drop-in ice chests.
When installing an ice chest or cooler in your outdoor kitchen, it’s always a good idea to choose or build a lid for the chest. A cover improves insulation, keeps the cooler cold for longer, keeps outdoor debris out of your ice, and creates a surface for temporary storage or stacking.
Add a DIY Outdoor Sink
Supplying household plumbing to an outdoor kitchen can be an expensive and complex project, but it makes outdoor cooking and clean-up so much easier. An outdoor sink can also double as an ice bucket, so it’s more versatile than installing an ice chest or cooler.
Consider installing a sink and using your garden hose for the water supply for a more affordable DIY outdoor sink solution. You can choose from cold-water-only faucets designed explicitly for outdoor use or simply use an adapter to connect a garden hose to the tap of your choice.
If you place your sink over grass or gravel, you can simply allow water to drain out the bottom or use PVC piping to direct drain water to a different location.
Add DIY Outdoor Kitchen Shelving and Cabinets
When it comes to DIY outdoor kitchens, you can never have too much storage. It’s so much easier to cook, play, and entertain outdoors when you can keep everything you need close at hand.
Instead of doing most of your storage indoors and moving things back and forth, it’s easier to keep duplicate frequently used items outdoors. Build a place to securely store salt and pepper, napkins, outdoor cooking utensils, outdoor kitchen cleaning supplies, and similar items.
Open shelving can also be a beautiful way to display plants or decorative items, add lanterns and lighting, and otherwise enhance your décor.
If you don’t feel up to building DIY drawers for your outdoor kitchen, a shelving unit with weatherproof baskets or wooden crates works just as well in a fraction of the time.
Build a DIY Pergola for Your Outdoor Kitchen
When building any structure over your outdoor kitchen, be aware of fire safety and heat risk. However, a DIY pergola is a fantastic addition to an outdoor kitchen. Pergolas are attractive and visually make an outdoor kitchen more visually defined and more appealing.
They are great DIY projects because woodworkers can easily create and assemble one, but people who want a simpler alternative can easily purchase a pergola kit and build it themselves.
If you have a pergola, consider all the ways it can be used to enhance your outdoor kitchen. A pergola can be decorated with hanging plants, twinkle lights, or solar lanterns.
They can also be helpful as additional storage in an outdoor kitchen. Consider adding a hanging pot or utensil rack to your pergola or using it for hanging stemware or a wine rack
Make a DIY Retractable Canopy
Retractable canopies allow you to create shade on hot days and pull back the canopy to see the stars. They make an outdoor kitchen more versatile and useful, and will enable you to use it in a broader range of seasons and weather conditions, getting more value from your investment.
Retractable canopies can be expensive, but they are also a great DIY project for intermediate builders. Making your own DIY retractable canopy requires some woodworking skills and tools, and it’s also helpful to have some knowledge of sewing and working with fabric.
When choosing a fabric for your retractable canopy, consider the climate and weather. Light fabrics like muslin and linen create light shade and a beachy feel but cannot withstand wind and harsh weather.
More robust fabrics like sailcloth are durable and weather-resistant but more expensive. You may also consider modern high-tech fabrics that allow light and air while blocking UV rays.
Remember to Include Entertainment
You don’t need an electrician to install outdoor electronics, and they can make your outdoor kitchen more useful and enjoyable. There is a vast range of solar-powered outdoor lights available, from string lights to wall lighting.
Adding waterproof solar-powered speakers allows you to enjoy your favorite music while cooking or entertaining outdoors or choose speakers that blend in with your landscaping.
An outdoor projection screen is a fast and easy DIY project, and adding an outdoor projector lets, you enjoy the game, catch up on the news, or host a movie night from the comfort of your own outdoor kitchen.
Conclusion
When building your DIY outdoor kitchen, the most crucial consideration is your initial planning, deciding where to site your grill or oven for safety, reducing fire hazards, and determining if and how you will add water and electricity to your outdoor space.
Adding additional plumbing and wiring can be expensive and challenging, and new DIYers should always consult local regulations and get the advice of an expert.
An outdoor kitchen is an incredible home improvement project and a great way to save money with DIY solutions. This project can grow over time with your skills as you consider which elements to design, plan, and build over time.
An outdoor DIY kitchen is also an excellent opportunity to save money with thrifted or reclaimed materials by repurposing scrap wood and house parts, using wood pallets, or finding free items on online bulletin boards or forums.
Many people have leftover materials from home improvement projects, or home stores have display models or returned items on sale. Being creative and resourceful not only makes an outdoor kitchen more affordable but also makes it more unique, customized, and reflective of your style.
Your family and friends will love spending time in your outdoor kitchen, and it will transform your home and your lifestyle.