Outdoors kitchen DONE (aka best husband ever)

This will be a picture heavy post, because I am just so ridiculously happy and proud over our lovely outdoors kitchen and need to show it off. To be perfectly honest it is not entirely done, there still is some sort of proper hatch to be created for the oven, and some kind of stone/brick floor needs to be put down, but... look at this! Marcus really did an amazing job with it. And oh yes, a couple of steps will also be built to connect things. It's almost done, alright!





So how was this done? First, a trench was dug into the ground/slope. A base of compacted gravel was then then added to the bottom of the trench, and on top of that a reinforced frame was constructed out of leca blocks, rebars and concrete. On top of that the counter was constructed using even more leca blocks.


The grill is a commercial pre-case concrete thing, assembled on top of the counter (we just left the bottom half out, not needing it).

The oven was built using fireproof bricks (I think it's just a work of art personally, I love that oven!) as was the thing there to the right of the oven that we call the hearth.

 Everything was covered in... Ah. The dictionary says plaster, but I don't think that's an entirely correct translation. Cement based... puts. Hnngh. Ah well! Hopefully you understand what I mean!












The surface was then painted white, and slabs of slate put in place. For a long time we thought of alternatives there, we were at first thinking of using the same tiles we have in the kitchen for example, but then in the end we decided that clean slate would be best.

The grill is seeing a lot of use already. This picture here to the left you see it being used to make burgers, for example! The "hearth" we have still only used twice but it works wonderfully as well. The oven I am still working on getting the hang of, it's not as easy as one would think! I have managed to bake some simple flatbread in there and next step is to try making pizza (of course).



There you have it, our outdoors kitchen!

Outdoors kitchen WIP and look who is back!

Yes! We are still alive out here, and I have finally decided to pick up this blog again so hopefully you will be seeing more from me again now!

Let me restart by showing you what Marcus has been working on lately...

Our outdoors kitchen is growing and while I wish I could take cred for this, it is all Marcus' spectacular work. Look at dat oven! It's still not entirely done of course, we are considering adding a second layer of bricks around the main dome to help it keep the heat in better, and like the rest will be whitewashed in the end. Will need to post again when there is more progress to report!

Now to wrap up with a cat picture, because... Well because I want to. Until next time!

Creating a stone path...

Laying down stones to form a path to what will eventually be an earth cellar... Like a puzzle, always trying to find the best way to fit the stones together. Marvellous, I love this kind of very creative and hands-on gardening!








As much as possible I want to avoid buying stones for paths and decorative features in the garden. We certainly have enough rocks to work with on our small patch of land, plus I really like things not to be perfect and symmetrical.

What we've been up to this summer...

I've mentioned before that we are about to move out of the city and finally get our own house. The house itself isn't actually there yet, though... but it's coming quite quickly!

So instead of playing around at home with sewing, candlemaking or whatever I usually do, this summer we've been crafting on a different scale. We're not actually building the house ourselves, but we have been busy working on other stuff.

And now, time for some pictures! Finally, yay!