Farmhouse Outdoor Living

With school out and nicer weather, 

we are spending more time outside

in our new outdoor living area.

This was last year's BIG (SUPER BIG) project.

It took longer to build than it did

to build our house!  It was worth the wait though.

Want to take a look?

This is the outdoor living area that I've always dreamed of!

It has lots of room to cook.

The stainless steel farmhouse sink

has a commercial faucet that really cleans up.

Across from the sink is a gas power burner

for crab & shrimp boils or anything else that needs lots of heat.

This area was also designed to be used for

processing meat chickens.  (This is a farm, after all!)

Before we built the kitchen, we bought our first Kamado Joe

ceramic charcoal oven. It wasn't long before we decided we wanted two of them.  We love cooking on these! Our favorite thing to make ~ 

"brick oven" pizza for a crowd.

Instead of a traditional gas grill, we opted for an EVO Mongolian grill.

This versatile stove top has the ability to cook everything

from pancakes & bacon, to onion burgers,

 to (yes, you guessed it) Mongolian stir fry. It's our go to grill for quick outdoor cooking.

All of the counter tops are concrete

with rough natural edges sealed and not stained

just like our concrete floors inside the house.

Shining from above are keyless light fixtures

with oversized bulbs also mirroring lighting inside the house.

These lovely lights are on a dimmer

to add just the right amount of glow for any occasion.

There is lots of room for friends and family

to gather around while the meals are being prepared

or to dig in when it's done.

And now we come to the fire pit.

We wanted a centerpiece.

Something that said "modern" & "farmhouse."

Form and function but not fancy.

We decided on concrete walls with the rough edges showing.

Then we topped it with sealed cedar.

We purposefully made the boards wide enough 

to place plates or glasses around them to double as a tabletop.

A long linear gas flame floats down the middle of the red

fire glass beads that match the farmhouse.

It's a true gathering place.

All of the patio furniture is from Berlin Gardens

and made from recycled milk carton material.  

The colorful chairs that we had out back before 

have been scattered around the farm

in the bee garden, in front of the tool shed, 

and in the flower garden.

Last stop on the tour is often our last stop in the evening ~

the hot tub.  We LOVE our Bullfrog Spa!

For our family, a spa just made sense.

Plus, it's helpful with my husband's back.

In the summer, we turn the heat off and it's a cool tub instead.  We

also added more speakers from our whole house sound system.

We had a vault built for the tub to sit in and put a sump pump in the bottom.  We felt like this would put the deck at a good seat height but not so close to the ground where we might be more likely to have snakes and other critters who want to swim.  The center section of the deck is one piece and is removable to access the inner workings of the hot tub and the sump pump.

Of course we wanted a privacy screen

and since we were used to having a shortcut to the backdoor

through here, we thought a disguised gate was in order.  The same barn door hardware that is inside our house was used here too.  Nothing fancy, just Tractor Supply stuff.

All together, we love our farmhouse outdoor living area

and hope to enjoy it for years to come.