Outdoor Kitchens A List Celebrity "Must Have"

Phew weather is about as hot as it gets here in Chester.

Couldn't resist this - it seems I am in competition with Guy Ritchie, Jamie Oliver and Gwyneth Paltrow who all have (according to Times newspapers) see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article7133565.ece

Here are a few pics of  Ricardo's Pizzeria built in our own garden four years ago! Not practical but great fun.

Rona painted Plum Tree Studio starts heatwave arrives

As I am writing this the temperature outside is 27 degrees (officialy a heatwave in my commentary) I have a couple of pics of the veranda painted and Plum Tree Studio concrete base going in.

This is a good setting for this new project but quite a long way to barrow 8 tons of concrete on a hot day. It is sometimes best to use concrete and this is one of those projects which requires an extra strong floor with no give at all. The building is going into full time use as a therapy studio immediately on completion. I will feature other photos. Weather permitting we should have the roof complete on Thursday. So no excuses - this is what the building looks like today.

I suppose all projects start out as a drawing and a pile of materials - this is the wood pile in our workshop ready to be converted - 5 tons of it to be precise! The redwood tgv boards top right would stretch a full mile if laid end to end.

Alex Johnsons shed book arrives on 29th May and I will feature a review of this on my blog - you can buy from Amazon now use the link to shedworking from our links page.

Rona Veranda complete and Plum Tree Studio starting

Heatwave on the way and Plum Tree Studio is about to start. 6m * 5m therapy studio with two areas and dissabled access. Full plumbing and electrical systems and two mezannine floors. This is a bespoke project designed with the client to function as a treatment room.

The design incorporates a sliding partition to separate of a private area when more than one patient is being treated.

More next week on this - here are a couple of pics of Rona Veranda before painting:

Outside

Inside

This poject was designed specifically for the property to client spec and provides 30 sq m of covered space for family activities and outdoor entertaining.

Rona Veranda and "iffy" weather + election!

I remember promising costruction photos of Rona Veranda. Here they are our busy season is here and the weather this week has been cold and wettish.

This is a super outdoor coverd space and BIG.

Dylan and I installed the deck/base on Tuesday and the frame today - Tuesday we will complete the project and I will update the blog next week.

It creates an extension.

8.5 metres * 3.5 metres of covered space.

As I am writing this it sounds like David Cameron is acting sensibly - I think we all need him to continue in this way.

Business seminar and Rona Veranda

More weather news - as I said the heatwave came + rain in London for the marathon. A further aside from Garden offices Neil’s seminar on Leading Edge Thinking was a great success here in Chester with Comments like “Very informative, would recommend anyone who wants to be successful in business to come to this seminar”, “Well structured, well researched content, delivered with enthusiasm” etc, etc

Leading Edge Thinking two or Too not sure yet is coming in mid July. For more see http://www.wildfire-concepts.com/

Will comment on this later.

Next week look out for our latest veranda project.

Rona Veranda drawing here>

Bothay is ready for final fit out

Weather prediction for tomorrow is "heatwave"

Just returned from site having prepared "Bothay" whatever that means! ready for second fix electrical and installation of kitchen etc. Here is the view from is surrounding garden:

Dylan is sweeping up whilst I take photos.

This building designed for the site is 10.5 m * 4.0m and has a covered area - you can see to the left. On the subject of weather, yesterday Dylan an I were sitting "grabbing a sandwich just to the left of this photo and a tornado the first one I have experienced at first hand passed diagonaly as you look at the photo - over the covered area.

Inside:

Inside you can see the complex roof or at least a bit of it as the building opens out giving a massive 30 sq metres of internal space.

Just a shot of the covere area:

A good space for sitting outside in the rain - a bit more space to fumble with keys when carrying ple of papers and a laptop!!

Next week we move a previous building and start work on a huge veranda - bit busy but will keep blogging.

Grand National Barbeque

We built a garden office 2 or three years ago for a client in Chester - Simon (the client) calls me to help out with Covered barbeque structure. Simon had organised a Grand National party having backed the winner last year "do you remember the odds" and was in a bit of a fix to get it installed in time.

I took the opportunity on re-visit to this site and to make video presentation of this tiny covered BBQ project you can see at http://www.youtube.com/ricardospizzeria#p/a/u/0/nmwb3somgds . As usual totally unscripted with Dave back on camera and me - presenting - starting off in our workshop with sympathetic background and flipchart visual aid!

Our own annual family bets on the race failed to realise a profit this year but business and weather continues to favour us. On the next post you should see our complex roof building installation. Its Sunday afternoon temperature here is in the high teens and we are all loaded up to start sit-work in the morning.

Weather continues to improve - a promising week ahead for outdoor chefs.

If you have been reading this blog I guess you think I am obsessed by weather but if you had been working outside this winter "so would you be". A single wood burner in a 250 square metre workshop doesn't improve the climate very much!

Just a quick plug for my friends business seminar on April 21st you can get details at http://www.wilfire-concepts.com/ I am presinting the second session focussing on Differentiation and future trends in business - but may stray off into IT and predictions of coming impact to business. (one of my main interests and my career for 25 years before escaping to garden office design and installation). Event is near Chester and suitable for business leaders needing to review their business plans.

New project starting (Complex Roof)

First photo on blog taken in our workshop in Chester.

I took this photo to demonstrate how we create complex bespoke structures. The building which you will see on site in the next few days is a large structure covering 40 sq m. It has been designed to compliment a new formal garden and cater for large barbeque parties etc. I guess now you can see why I like it!

The roof is nearly eleven metres long and fills a good part of our workshop as it is created before knocking down into a kit for transport.

Here it is.

Small corner garden office

3m square Garden Office with 45-degree corner doorway entry and pyramid roof. The building is double glazed and insulated. Building designed and built by us.
This building required full planning permission due to the fact that the roof was over 2.5m and in order to save garden space it needed to be sited very close to the boundary. The planners were helpful about design and plan submission by email and all went ahead smoothly. Time from submission of plans to permission granted was 9 weeks as promised. The alternative was to build with a flat roof – I think you can agree the wait was worth it.
You can see something of the style of local buildings in the background “a Cheshire Village environment”

Matching Furniture and first barbecue of the season

Printer table and stationary cupboard

Kitchen

We were invited back to design and install some matching fittings:
This large garden office is home to a specialist tree care company in cheshire. http://www.amenitytree.com/

You can see. the building from the outside at http://www.aarco.co.uk/snapshot%20Office%20for%20six%20people.htm


Currently we are working on a garden office a large complex multi purpose garden building with two rooms a covered outdoor space a gymnasium and a veranda structure. More on these soon.

Bit of an awkward week coming up with rain on and off but temperatures have certainly improved. First barbecue of the season was Saturday.

Barbeque Summer on the way!!

Weather continues to improve and it seems outdoor cooking is back - could this be our "Barbeque Summer" predicted for last year. The traffic on our http://www.outdoor-kitchens.co.uk/ page is catching up on our Garden Buildings pages. I thought it was just me and Jamie Oliver that were interested! (although I built mine first)

Well indeed not we are to feature soon in another magzine article on outdoor entertaining. Maybe www.youtube.com/ricardospizzeria will feature a movie of my Pizza Oven in action soon!

Bloomingfelt Office Completed and ready for painting

Much better that the information comes from our client you can see here photos etc.http://pictureitinstitches.blogspot.com/

AS predicted

Weather was brilliant - project complete tomorrow so photos due in day or so.

Onwards etc.