Hi all, I hope y’all had a good week! Mine was OK but sadly no BBQ action this week due to lack of time and less than ideal weather here inthe UK!
For the last week I have been quite busy in my spare times onmy next DIY project. We moved house recently and we finally have enough backyardspace so I could finally build what I have been wanting for the last 3 years… a mini outdoor kitchen! Let me explain.
In our last place we didn’t have a garden, merely a little 2.4 x 2.5m patio open to everything so I couldn’t really build and keep a lotof outdoor furniture out, in fact there was not enough place to have both our garden table and chairs and my 22.5 OTG at the same time which drove me crazy! Now our patio garden is probably 8-10x that size so I finally bit the bullet, bought some lumber and stated out my mini outdoor kitchen.
The reason why I am building this is that it drives me crazy at times not having any cart or work surface next to the grill when I am outside barbecuing (I’m sure a lot of you guys will relate to that!), I am also big on food safety and like to wash my pans, tongs and utensils straight away after been in contact with raw meat, up until now I have to shuffle back and forth from the grill outside to the kitchen on the other side of the house to do the washing-up driving my wife nuts dragging dirt and dust inside, so apart from having a worktop, my little kitchen cart needs to have a plumbed sink so I can do all the food prep and washing up outside. Enough rambling, more pictures.
I made the frame out of 2x3 with sub-frames put together by 2” pocket holes,glued and biscuit jointed for strength and good joint alignment, in other words these things aren’t going to come loose anytime soon:
I made the upright post by notching housing joints on all 3 levels on all corners to add strength to the joint and distribute the weight of the finished cart:
pic of the sub-frame stained, glued and screwed together:
Initially I wanted to make everything out of Western RedCedar, but the cost is crazy over here in the UK, so to same money I only made the top level slats out of red cedar and the rest of the slats was from wood I reclaimed from some aggregate pallets I get from my local industrial estate, pallet wood is really tough, weather resistant and most of it is quality hardwood (mostly Alder and Oak with a bit of Redwood too), once planed and cut to size, the wood is actually really beautiful:
Mock-up of the finish result, I ordered on Amazon a cheap stainless steel caravan sink (or camping trailer for you guys in the US) and a garden tap with wall bracket, sink came in with all the waste plumbing too, nowthe only things left to do is stain and varnish all the slats, give a second coat of stain/sealer to the frame, fit the sink, plumb it and add a few bells& whistles to it (magnetic knife rack, bottle opener, bbq utensils hooks …):
In term of design, I drew inspiration from a Popular Mechanic cart plan they have online as well as a cart Norm Abrams from New Yankee Workshop did a while ago, but it’s mostly my own plan and design. If anyone is interested I’m happy to share the dimensions and key measures.
Hope you guys like it and hopefully inspire a few of you to do something similar in the future!
Jules
For the last week I have been quite busy in my spare times onmy next DIY project. We moved house recently and we finally have enough backyardspace so I could finally build what I have been wanting for the last 3 years… a mini outdoor kitchen! Let me explain.
In our last place we didn’t have a garden, merely a little 2.4 x 2.5m patio open to everything so I couldn’t really build and keep a lotof outdoor furniture out, in fact there was not enough place to have both our garden table and chairs and my 22.5 OTG at the same time which drove me crazy! Now our patio garden is probably 8-10x that size so I finally bit the bullet, bought some lumber and stated out my mini outdoor kitchen.
The reason why I am building this is that it drives me crazy at times not having any cart or work surface next to the grill when I am outside barbecuing (I’m sure a lot of you guys will relate to that!), I am also big on food safety and like to wash my pans, tongs and utensils straight away after been in contact with raw meat, up until now I have to shuffle back and forth from the grill outside to the kitchen on the other side of the house to do the washing-up driving my wife nuts dragging dirt and dust inside, so apart from having a worktop, my little kitchen cart needs to have a plumbed sink so I can do all the food prep and washing up outside. Enough rambling, more pictures.
I made the frame out of 2x3 with sub-frames put together by 2” pocket holes,glued and biscuit jointed for strength and good joint alignment, in other words these things aren’t going to come loose anytime soon:
I made the upright post by notching housing joints on all 3 levels on all corners to add strength to the joint and distribute the weight of the finished cart:
pic of the sub-frame stained, glued and screwed together:
Initially I wanted to make everything out of Western RedCedar, but the cost is crazy over here in the UK, so to same money I only made the top level slats out of red cedar and the rest of the slats was from wood I reclaimed from some aggregate pallets I get from my local industrial estate, pallet wood is really tough, weather resistant and most of it is quality hardwood (mostly Alder and Oak with a bit of Redwood too), once planed and cut to size, the wood is actually really beautiful:
Mock-up of the finish result, I ordered on Amazon a cheap stainless steel caravan sink (or camping trailer for you guys in the US) and a garden tap with wall bracket, sink came in with all the waste plumbing too, nowthe only things left to do is stain and varnish all the slats, give a second coat of stain/sealer to the frame, fit the sink, plumb it and add a few bells& whistles to it (magnetic knife rack, bottle opener, bbq utensils hooks …):
In term of design, I drew inspiration from a Popular Mechanic cart plan they have online as well as a cart Norm Abrams from New Yankee Workshop did a while ago, but it’s mostly my own plan and design. If anyone is interested I’m happy to share the dimensions and key measures.
Hope you guys like it and hopefully inspire a few of you to do something similar in the future!
Jules
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I wouldn't describe myself as a true woodworker yet, merely a DIY enthusiast learning carpentry , I started out building stuff 3 years ago and acquired quite a lot of tools and techniques, but for the last few month I'm trying to go back to basics and use as much hand tools as possible and try to avoid the easy options of power tools, just to hone the skills of doing things the old way and getting proficient cutting joints by hand (dovetails, mortice and tenons). On this build I've used 90% hand tools, the only 2 power tools used were a drill/driver and a biscuit jointer, all the sawing, planing and sanding were done by hand 
Having a work surface is really a necessity I believe, it makes it much much easier to get the cook done.
