Looking to build an outdoors kitchen (or have built). I'm a bit of a DYI'er but I'm a afraid this might be a little out of my league with a few of the challenges presented.

I have a fairly small back yard so this is not going to be a massive setup, probably working within a 12x6' area. I want to integrate a charcoal grill / smoker, sink, maybe a small fridge.

There are plenty of smoker/grill threads out there so I don't want this to solely focus on those comparisons. I'm sorting through the type/size of smoker right now to integrate.

Couple of questions for the OB:

1. Any pictures/ideas from your current outdoor kitchen set up?

2. Any lessons learned from building/having yours built? Things you wish you would have done differently or better in hindsight?

3. If you had yours built turnkey or partially, recommendations for someone to use? (Houston, Tomball/Cypress area)

Hit the next parade of homes is my suggestion (they do these in DFW and Houston, etc?). I'll be building one too, and seeing them in person is MUCH better than pictures. I have a rough plan of what I want based on about three different outdoor kitchens in a couple different parades.

Getting power, water, drain, and possibly gas supply will be your biggest deal as far as planning, but I'm probably not telling you anything you don't know.

Rule #2....post project pics when you are done.

Parade of Homes is a pretty good idea. I'll look into that. And yea, those are the toughest items for me (especially navigating the pool plumbing already in place), I'm pretty confident in doing the slab and up myself, it's just running all the necessary utilities.

Sounds like a good idea, post pictures of yours as well!

A little more room than I've got, but very nice set up. Did you do it yourself? Come with the house? Have it built?

Haha. Was afraid of the MF jabs. Had it built. Bought a slightly. used home with NOTHING in the backyard. Allowed me to build my fantasy kitchen.

Went with commercial appliances - heavy duty/durable.

The smoker is a pitmaker safe (it's awesome). Range has double ovens, six burners and a 24in griddle. Gas chargriller is OK. Added the PK grill as the go to for grilling when I have time to get charcoal going. Not seen is a 48" undercounter fridge.

The range, chargriller, fridge and ice machine combined were less than a wolf brand range.

Shipley that is an awesome setup!

How often do you find yourself using that beautiful Kitchen?

Shipley sort of ended this thread before it got started. I was looking forward to some pics of other set ups for the rest of us common outdoor chefs.

So I'm guessing we are looking a little more advanced than my 8x10' concrete slab, Igloo cooler and littler Weber charcoal grill?

Here's our patio/kitchen addition in Katy from a couple years ago. We typically find ourselves sitting out back 2-4 times per week watching sports and grilling while the kiddo plays in the yard. We are very pleased with the work from Roland Younger at Living Improvements in Stafford. He was very easy to work with through the whole process and has since done 4-5 projects for friends/family. I didn't install a smoker (when I smoke anything, it's on the electric smoker) but the charcoal pit rotates so that I can dump the ashes into a bucket on the outside.

https://texags.com/forums/34/topics/2497675

That's beautiful man. I don't have that kind of space for all the covered sitting area, but the actual kitchen looks very much like something I had in mind. Roughly the same amount of space to work with.

Thanks. I'm out there all the time. It's my dream setup.

Good also that I can cook all the stinky smokey stuff out there.

I will say that I see a lot of those safe smokers in outdoor kitchens now. They seem to work well and take up very little room.