A wood stove outdoors on a white cabinet

Outdoor Kitchens & Bars

How to Get the Most Out of Your Outdoor Kitchen

Is your backyard ready for prime grilling season? With summer fast approaching, now is the perfect time to upgrade your outdoor kitchen and cooking space. A well-designed kitchen can increase your home’s value and provide a central place for your family and guests to enjoy for years to come.

Our team at Outdoor Innovations Landscaping has been designing and building custom outdoor kitchens for nearly 20 years. With our extensive experience, we’re here with our expert guide to help you maximize your outdoor space, get the features you want, and improve functionality while staying stylish.

Match Your Hardscape and Home Features

Whether you’re adding an outdoor kitchen to your existing landscape or it’s part of a large installation job, try to create a cohesive design. For example, too many conflicting stone colors between the pavers and stone counters won’t look as clean and pleasing to the eye. Plus, it’s important to avoid squeezing too much into your yard. Crowding a space with features will only make the backyard look smaller instead of adding to your home’s overall aesthetic.

Create Designated Areas in Your Outdoor Kitchen

To create a functional and beautiful outdoor kitchen, it helps to section it into different areas. Keep a separate section for cooking, prepping, serving, and cleanup. That way, everything is cohesive and not a jumbled mess when it’s time to use your space. This is one of the best ways to ensure your kitchen is gorgeous and practical.

Seamlessly Blend Your Kitchen into Outdoor Dining

What’s a kitchen without a dining area? Whether you choose to extend the counter out to make a sitting bar or you add on a patio area for a table, it’s important to have somewhere close for everyone to sit and enjoy the food. Simple additions like adding seating to extra counter space and creating a dedicated patio close by can help elevate the space for events. However, you want to make sure there’s plenty of room to maneuver around both spaces.

Include Storage and Cleanup Solutions

When you’re dealing with the elements, storage in the outdoors needs to be specially designed. Landscape designers should know the best outdoor-safe cabinets, which will often be metal since they hold up better outdoors. Adding a mini fridge will allow you to keep food like meat at a safe temperature while prepping, and you can also keep drinks and condiments in there for an easy grab. Adding hidden trash areas, recycling bins, and other storage for cooking equipment is also a must.

Installing a sink and a pull-out trash helps make cleanup easy after using your outdoor kitchen. The sink hardware would also benefit from a faucet spray being included, so you can spray down the basin and the counter if needed. If you have the storage, you can keep all of your necessary cleaning supplies there as well.

Customize Your Cooking Experience with Kitchen Features

Have you always wanted a smoker or a wood-fired pizza oven? Maybe both? The design phase is the perfect time to consider how those features might fit into the job and if they’re manageable with your budget. Having a list of needs and wants will let the landscaper know exactly what you’re looking for, and they can do their best to include as much as possible.

Transform Your Minnesota Outdoor Kitchen Space

If you’re looking for ways to improve your current outdoor kitchen, give our experts a call. Outdoor Innovations has been offering quality landscaping services in the Twin Cities for over 15 years, and our expert team of designers and builders can deliver your backyard kitchen dreams.

Outdoor Innovations Landscaping creates elevated backyards for homeowners in Minnesota. From in-ground pools to luxurious grilling stations to outdoor living rooms, we do it all. Explore our past projects and get a quote online to make your dream backyard a reality.

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