Treehouse Pizza

[david s]

I finished polishing the counter tops to 800 grit this morning. I am glad to be done with that. Step. It is such a sloppy messy job and makes a huge mess of everything in the area.

On the other hand I can't believe how well they turned out considering that i simply used sack mix concrete and dye. The variety of colors is crazy and i can not wait to see it once all cleaned up and sealed.

Does anyone have a great suggestion for a sealer?

Randy

Nice job, did you have to fill and repolish too many pinholes?
Your stone facing looks terrific.

[RandyJ]

Hey david ssi did not do to many rounds of filling pinholes. I am pretty happy with how it turned outas there were some really rough spots from when I poured it. The concrete set up way faster then I ever imagined it would and I wound up with a few severely rough spots. I filled those in with slurry but they are not totally smooth. I think it is close enough though and I am not going to do anything to them most likely. I am going for a bit of a rustic look and it kinda adds to that look being not perfect. If I was going for that I would have had to pay some one to do it for me and that probably would have cost half of what I spent on this project or more. Just not in the cards.

Randy

[RandyJ]

Well wish me luck. Tomorrow is the first pizza party. I am about as ready as I can be. I have my dough made doing a cold rise in the fridge for 24hrs. I have 1 of my sauce made and melding in the fridge and I have the wood in the oven so it doesn't get soaked if it happens to storm tonight like they are claiming it might. I had basically the whole dome cleared last night so I am just going to let it rip tomorrow and try to get up to temp fairly quickly. Having the fire all built will help me here too so that I Don't have to do that once I get home from work. There will be enough other things to do. Like cut up all the toppings and get all the other things ready.

Randy

[UtahBeehiver]

Good luck on maiden voyage of oven number 2. You should be an old pro on cooking already.

[Giovanni Rossi]

You really gave it everything you had to make the deadline. Amazing work!

Hope the weather holds. Even if it doesn't, a bad day with good pizza is better than just about any other day without!

Enjoy the party. You earned it!

[RandyJ]

UtahBeehiver and Giovanni Rossi thanks for the comments. The party went well. I made a total of 8 pizzas . I have not made many pizzas in the last 5 years but it is kinda like riding a bike. Once you know it is hard to forget. Plus my son invited his friends family over and I am friends with his dad who is a executive chef who spent some time working at a Italian restaurant that had a wood fired oven. So he was helping me too so that made things a bit easier. Fortunately the rain held off and it was a wonderful evening.

Randy

[SableSprings]

Glad to hear your return to the joys of pizza with friends & families went well...using a great looking oven you built! Doesn't get much better than that.

[JRPizza]

I think your pooch is waiting for that pie to slide off of the peel. He (she?) has been in on this project from the start and hopefully was able to share in some of the rewards. My dearly departed dog really loved her crust!

[RandyJ]

Hey JRPizza that is Peanut. He is our almost 3yr old Boston terrier. He loves to be outside with me when I am working on pretty much anything. I was making the pizzas out in the yard and he was cleaning up any spilled cheese or whatever hit the ground. I do not believe he actually got any scraps this time but he did get a bite of chicken from the wings the other day. When we got him he was the runt and seemed very small but he is a monster of a Boston at almost 25#and not fat at all.

Giovanni Rossi you are right that I gave it my all to try to get this usable by now. I took a number of half days off of work and used every available moment of time. My wife was not always very happy with me for working on it obsessively. The problem with projects like this is it is not just building the oven dome. It is building the slab and stand and the dome and what ever the finish is and possibly a patio and possibly a pavilion or gazebo. Each one step is not a terrible amount of work but when you try to slam through all the steps at the same time one after another it can get to be almost overwhelming. I had to break it up into small steps or chunks in my mind to not feel buried by the project. Once I get the roof done I need to go back to finishing the guest bedroom I was working on in our basement . I think I am going to push the patio off till next year as once this part is done it will be good to go and that will not affect function.

Randy