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Aztec Stacked Stone Outdoor Kitchen
Outdoor kitchens are projects that offer a fabulous return on your home improvement investment dollar and this week’s featured project is no exception. With a big footprint coming right off the house, this project features our Aztec XLX Series Stacked Stone Rock Panels as essentially a dividing wall between the outdoor kitchen area and the rest of the yard. Along with some impressive woodworking details, this project is a fantastic representation of how stone can be used in a variety of different ways in this type of application. Let’s take a quick look around this project to see how it was done.
This first photo is great because it really gives the lay of the land of the project. A large concrete pad was poured directly off the rear entrance of the house and a small sloped roof was attached to the home to create a defined covered outdoor space that is both functional and beautiful. The lighter earth tones of the Aztec colored stacked stone gets used on three main columns that are supporting the roof as well as the walls adjoining these columns and creating a dividing point between the outdoor kitchen and the rest of the backyard. The finger jointed outside corner units of the XLX Series Rock Panels made the installation of the stacked stone veneer around the columns much simpler than trying to miter cut, and the end result looks fantastic. The color range of the Aztec works nicely with both the stained concrete floor as well as the beautiful woodworking on both the columns and roof.
The grill station occupies one corner of the space and is uniquely built into a beautiful wood surround that also forms the base cabinetry for an adjoining small counter top area. We’ve looked at lots of stacked stone outdoor kitchen projects that have used our products before and most of the time we see our stacked stone veneer panels get used to enhance the lower cabinets that are supporting the grill and any adjoining counter tops, sinks, etc. This project is certainly unique in that expertly skilled carpentry is used in favor of more common stainless steel doors and cement or stone veneer options. We don’t know for sure, but most building codes would necessitate that the underlying structure supporting a grill be made of non combustible material, so there’s a good chance that the wood here is just a veneer, covering over the non combustible materials needed for code requirements.
This next photo of the outdoor kitchen showing the space opposite the grill again features the Aztec XLX stacked stone panels used to create the waist wall defining the outdoor kitchen from the rest of the yard. The stone work in this seating area is fantastic – there’s even an architectural feature used in the corner where instead of just designing that section to be a simple inside corner, they kept with their design theme of columns at each corner which ended up creating an extra outside corner visible here. Architectural details like these, especially in stonework, can get lost on many people, but for those with a keen design eye and appreciation for detail these details separate normal projects from ones that are truly special.
One of the things we like most about outdoor kitchens is that almost every one is unique. Some will be freestanding with no roof – others such as the featured project this week will have an extensive covering that’s perhaps the most complicated part of the whole project! Some will use stone only around the grill, or sometimes only on the “outside facing” wall sections, where others will give the stacked stone veneer a prominent spot not just along the grill but along major sections of wall space. This week’s project is without a doubt an amazing looking stacked stone outdoor kitchen that will provide the owners with years of enjoyment and a good return on their home improvement investment dollar. To learn more about how stacked stone can be used on an outdoor kitchen project you have planned for the future, or any project where natural stone veneer can enhance the aesthetic of the job please contact us today to learn more about our stacked stone and contemporary stone natural stone veneers.
