Casa 90 corner build (and outdoor kitchen) begins....

[terdferguson]

Today! First a little background about my project. Here is what the outdoor space originally looked like:

(the wfo is going in that corner all the way to the left)


Ever since we bought this house I always loved this space as a canvas that we could turn into something much better. Now we are doing that. Phase 1 was adding a roof to the space. Hey, I live in Florida. It's hot and rainy during our never ending summer. Gotta cover the space to make it usable. So we did this:



Knocked down the small brick wall in front to open up the space and had a roof built. We opted for stained pine on the inside ceiling. TV up in the corner and a table will arrive in Feb to go under the chandelier. No, I did not do this work. Waaaaaaaaayyy beyond my scope. This project just wrapped up a couple weeks ago so now it's on to phase 2......the wood fired oven and outdoor kitchen.

[terdferguson]

I made a design of the whole space on sketchup:



And of course a design of the wfo:



So the wfo will be attached to a counter with a grill. Then the other counter will be a bar area with sink and built in coolers. By the way, someone on here recommended sketchup and whoever that person is, they're awesome. Because Sketchup is awesome. I watched the first 4 tutorial videos on youtube and then made what you see. And it's free! Love sketchup!

I originally was dead set on doing a pompeii, but I ended up coming to a compromise with the wife. We settled on the casa90 to make things a little easier. I'm not a handyman type with a lot of construction experience so this will be a big project for me with a lot of beginner type questions. I've been reading and reading on the forums and *hope* that I have gained enough knowledge to begin. So now I begin!

One last thing, here is a link to my original design thread where I've already been asking some of those beginner questions and receiving great answers from helpful forum members. Thanks for helping me get started guys!

[terdferguson]

The corner where the wfo is going is interesting. There's already a brick stand built there with an opening for wood storage. That's certainly somewhat helpful. I think a long time ago a grill must have been there. So my stand is already partially built. I will need to build the stand out more. But first I needed to remove the bricks that form a small wall in the back. My father in law and I removed the bricks with a chisel hammer:



Now it looks like this:



I needed to remove those bricks so I could slide the wfo back into the corner as far as possible. I don't have a lot of room from the front of my wfo to the dining table in the middle of my outdoor space. Every inch counts. I'm saving the bricks to clean and reuse in the arch around the wood storage and oven opening.

[RandyJ]

Wow I love your spot for the out door kitchen. I can't wait to see it all take shape. It is going to look great.

Randy

[UtahBeehiver]

Nice looking layout. But before you get too far along, as DavidS mention about building an oven right on the property line, check with your local zoning department. It appears the brick and vinyl fence are on the property lines between you and you neighbor's house and the oven/BBQ design show the layout butting right up against the fence. I would hate to see you start and have the building inspector shut you down. Better safe than sorry.

[terdferguson]

I contacted the building dept. This was a new one for them. After a few days they called me back and said I didn't need a permit and that they would classify it as a bbq which can go right up to the property line. In addition, my vinyl fence isn't on the property line. My property actually goes 20" past the fence into my neighbors yard! I'll actually be bumping out the vinyl fence by about 4" to accomodate the oven. I've already shown my plans to my neighbor and have her blessing.

[terdferguson]

Wow I love your spot for the out door kitchen. I can't wait to see it all take shape. It is going to look great.

Randy

Thanks Randy!

[UtahBeehiver]

Sounds like you are golden then. I invited my neighbors each side of me over for the maiden voyage of the oven to thank them for putting up with all the noise and mess I made during my build, Word spread and now I have the whole block of neighbors who want to be my friend when I fire up the oven...........Something like "the little red hen" nursery story.

[terdferguson]

Sounds like you are golden then. I invited my neighbors each side of me over for the maiden voyage of the oven to thank them for putting up with all the noise and mess I made during my build, Word spread and now I have the whole block of neighbors who want to be my friend when I fire up the oven...........Something like "the little red hen" nursery story.

You are very wise.

[terdferguson]

Got some work done on the front part of my stand this weekend.



And I had some help...




I was nervous to put down that first cinder block! Checked and rechecked my numbers, but I don't want to make a mistake. Now I'm cleaning some of those old bricks. Trying to make enough usable to put a layer down as a floor inside the stand. You can see in the cutout in the back there is already a layer of bricks down as a floor. I'd like to continue that out to the front. I figure it will keep water out of the area.

[terdferguson]

Sorry about the lack of updates. Been real busy the last several weeks and had a week long vacation in there. But the last two weeks things have been happening. First this arrived:



Oh yeah!

Then two weekends ago I went to work on my stand. I used durock to cover the two open spaces in my stand. I tapconed (is that a word?) it to the brick. I braced underneath the durock with 2x4s and plywood to spread out the support.



I saw on other builds that people used shims under the supports. Great idea!

[terdferguson]

That was two weekends ago. Last weekend....on to the forms. I mostly used 2x8s and screwed them into my brick and cinder blocks with tapcons.



That's my father in law helping me out. He's a carpenter and I'm a guy who doesn't know what he's doing soooo....yeah he was a big help with this part. I'm making an arch for my wood storage area. Again I read through some other builds to get ideas how to accomplish this. I bought some flexible stuff from home depot which has one side that's a nonstick surface. I forget what it's called. Here's my completed arch form:



I put 5 support pieces under the arch. Here is the finished forms:



Oh yeah. I also layed the bricks you can barely see at the bottom of the wood storage area. I wanted this to be raised up off the ground to prevent water from getting in. My patio slopes towards the wfo, so it was necessary.

[terdferguson]

And here it is with the rebar:



I bought a metal pipe from home depot that I used to bend the rebar. It's funny, I see these pictures of the rebar laid out in a grid and it looks so easy. Nope. Took me quite a while to get all the pieces so none were too high or low. I used little pieces of bricks and chunks of mortar to support the grid in a couple spots. I rubbed all the boards with canola oil and filled some larger gaps with mortar (not sure if this was ok or not, but whatever). Then it was time for...



Oh man. My back hurts just looking at this pic. I think I used 27 bags. Not too bad as I know bigger stands can use a lot more. Still....it sucked. And the finished product:



Not the most aesthetically pleasing slab, but it'll do. I couldn't get all the pebbles pushed down into the concrete when I did my floating. Not sure if my concrete was too dry or too wet, but I suspect one or the other. I made a small slab in my front yard a couple years ago and it turned out better. Oh well. So that was Sunday and I've been misting it since. I'd like to take off the forms Friday or Saturday and start placing the oven. Do you guys think that will be long enough?

[JRPizza]

I can't see your pictures in the last two posts. Are you clicking on the camera button in the upper left or using the attachment button on the right side?

[terdferguson]

Should be fixed.