5 Outdoor Kitchen Design Ideas for a Busy Home in Wappinger Falls, NY

One of the best features you can build in any landscape is the outdoor kitchen. Nothing goes together like a delicious meal cooked outside in the summer sun with loved ones all around you. If you’re lucky enough to spend even more time outside, then you can keep the outdoor kitchen in frequent use with the many different amenities available. It’ll surely become one of your favorite features in your outdoor living space. Apart from the basic necessities in any kitchen: a sink, a refrigerator, a cooktop and a countertop prep area, you can easily customize your outdoor kitchen to what you want and need. Here are five outdoor kitchen design ideas for a busy home in Wappinger Falls, NY.

Related: Should You Connect an Outdoor Kitchen With Your Patio in Fishkill, NY?

A Bar Countertop

By expanding the usable countertop of your outdoor kitchen, you will not only have the ability to create more delicious meals outside, but you can include bar seating so that friends and family can stay close to all the action. This is also the perfect location for a small refrigerator to house beverages and snacks for everyone to minimize trips to the house.

Curving the countertop will increase the number of bar seats as well as break up the straight lines so that it’s easier for everyone to commiserate with good food and good drinks in your beautiful backyard.

Shelter

Weather is often unpredictable during the summer and you don’t want to have to scramble to move everyone and everything inside as a sudden rainstorm interrupts your meal. Part of the outdoor kitchen should be under a sort of shelter such as a pavilion, which can provide proper coverage from sun and rain as necessary. A pavilion also provides a greater opportunity for permanent comfortable seating, speaker systems, and even a fireplace that maximizes the atmosphere for all your summer meals.

A Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

Few can resist the urge of a hot and bubbly pizza straight from the oven in your backyard. Even better, these wonderful masonry structures are capable of cooking far more than just pizzas. In fact, you can cook anything in a skillet or a cast-iron pot using a wood fire. If you already have an outdoor fireplace or are looking to include one in the overall scheme of your patio, then this is your perfect opportunity to build a pizza oven/fireplace combination. You can even place seating around the oven/fireplace so that the heat generated is trapped and you can enjoy the warmth and ambience well into the colder months.

A Speaker System

Include space in your outdoor kitchen for one of the best things to elevate a dining experience: music. Strategically-placed speakers in your outdoor kitchen will localize the sound and reduce the amount of excess noise generated in your backyard. Meanwhile, your family and guests will have a memorable dining experience each time.

Adequate Storage Space

The busiest of outdoor kitchens all have one thing in common: enough storage space so you can have everything in its right place and minimize trips back to the indoor kitchen. Outdoor kitchens are most elegant when they feature an open plan with few cabinets above the countertop. This means that all of the food, utensils, plates, glasses, and your appliances should be stored underneath the countertop. For this sake, design an outdoor kitchen that is large enough to hold exactly what you need or it could end up taking too much space.

Related: How To Create an Outdoor Kitchen That Will Satisfy the Passionate Cook in Poughkeepsie, NY