Professional Design Help

We had a professional design person come over to take a look this morning. She helped us with all the colors/design in our house and has a really good eye for this stuff (which is lucky, since that is her job).

She approved of the granite/tile combination, liked the sail shade idea (in a sailcloth color) and is steering us this way in terms of colors for the BBQ.

I really like the fact that it isn't the same color as the house, and the two color plan definitely adds some zing and breaks up the island. This granite (honed ubatuba) is OK, but we still aren't set on it, we need to get a couple more samples to look at once I have some painted some of the color on the walls. So I will swing by the paint store on the way home and pick up these colors and slap some on the walls.

Inching closer.......

Getting There....

So I went to a local tile store on the way home to get some ideas and pick up some samples. The choices are just getting more and more......

When I got them home, Liz had decided that maybe granite was what she wanted now. She'd seen someone's BBQ and they had a granite counter that wasn't the normal shiny polished finish, but a rougher (antique or leathered) finish and it looked good.

Originally I had wanted granite but had convinced myself of the tile benefits primarily because it allowed me to get a better look on the counter edges/faces and the baseboard.

So we finally worked out that we could have both. Granite counters/bartop and a coordinated tile edge & baseboard. This will get us all the benefits (and probably the cost) of both options!

The colors aren't quite right in this picture but are a little closer to reality than any of the other pictures. You can get an idea of what it would look like.

So now I need to find a granite place as well as make all the tile decision. This is going to cost a little more, and take a little longer but in the long run we will be much happier with this and the extra cost is going to be negligible compared to what I've already poured into this grill.

And just to keep things real, this is what it actually looks like right now.

Tiles, tiles and more tiles.....

The tile selection process is proving difficult. Lots of options. Here are a bunch of tiled counters from the internet, in no particular order.

and there are some more I posted earlier here

Making Ends Meet

Spent a little time thinking about exactly how I am going to hook all the various pipes, flanges, taps, fans etc to make it so the beer travels from the keg to the glass without:

1. getting warm
2. getting flat
3. leaking all over the floor

This is obviously the most important part of the whole kitchen and I have neglected it. But now, brought to you by the power of Google Sketchup, here is the (tremendously over-engineered) solution. Here are some pictures of the pieces involved.

First here's the bottom of the beer tap. Beer goes in the thin silver pipe, cold air in the next pipe (the white one) and warm air return down the outside in the black pipe. This all gets screwed to the top of the counter with 4 bolts and a rubber washer.

Now let's go to the other end. This is the fan; it is a low voltage PC fan. This will sit inside the kegerator and blow cold air from the fridge up the grey pipe, into a pipe that runs all the way to the bottom of the tower.

These are the pipes I'm using. I'll cut a hole in the side of the kegerator (once I'm sure there is nothing but insulation in that panel, and run these thru the hole. beer runs in the clear, then it's cold air out, warm air in, and finally some pipe insulation to stop it all getting too hot.

The final part was how to join all this together so that it doesn't leak everywhere. I decided to design some custom brackets. One to stick on the side of the fridge and the other to epoxy to the bottom of the counter. These will accept the largest plastic pipe inside and allow me to tighten it all up and then use some spray foam to seal any final gap. The one on the counter will also give me a solid surface to bolt the beer tap to. There's a steel place near work that should be able to knock these up for me pretty easily. Shouldn't cost too much to get a couple made from galvanized steel.

Here's a cutaway diagram to show how it will look from the bottom (without the insulation drawn)

Sketchup Sail

I decided to see what the sail might look like using the power of Google Sketchup. First, this is a fantastic tool; you can setup your model so that it is aware of the location, direction, date and time to show you what shadows would look like at different times. These were all done with shadows in my backyard on August 12th at 1pm. You can even shift date/time to see how the shade will change throughout the year!

I did some research on these sails, and I will definitely need to put in a very solid pole (they recommend a ~4" steel pole sunk 3-4' into a big concrete footing for a 6-8' height). These sails are pulled very tight, with about 100lb of tension in the wires. The fence will definitely not handle that! I struggled with that for a while but then I realized that adding the pole in the right place would also solve my issue of how to mount a TV and heater! (Accidental brilliance is still brilliance)

I didn't draw the heater yet, but I'll probably add an electric infrared radiant heatlamp above the TV. I don't want too much, just enough to keep the first couple seats warm in those cool California evenings.

This next one shows the view from person level. You can see that the shade will be pretty good in the seated area, which is what I am looking for.

This is the aerial view, showing what the birds will be aiming for when they do their flyovers....

I think this looks pretty good and it is going to be easier than putting up a big wobbly trellis, also looks cooler than a boring wooden trellis. Not sure on color yet, I did red just to give it some contrast in the pictures.

Shade Solution

So the trellis is proving difficult to design. It's a 17' span, and general feedback is that I need to go to 2x12 on both sides of the 6x6 posts to span that distance. 2x12 is going to look pretty big up there! and it's going to be mighty unstable with just 2 poles. best solution would be to go with a traditional square setup and bring it out over the hole island, but i dont really want that much structure. another alternative is to go with a metal beam but they are pricey, heavy etc.

So the latest "outside the box" thought I had was one of these. I would need a custom shape/size but could hang 2 two corners from the house and one from the fence. (or a new post sunk just inside the fence). I wouldn't have it cover the grill part, just the seating area (as a large sheet of canvas over a flaming grill being attached to the house seems not too clever). this will obviously cause me a problem with hanging a heater off the trellis, so I need to rethink that part.

This place does custom sizes, shapes and colors. custom prices seem to be about 600-1000 depending on the size, quality etc but that's likely less than the trellis with custom steel beams, and it could like pretty cool.

On the tile VS granite decision, I am leaning heavily towards tile - Despite the ease of cleaning granite I think a solid chunk of granite is going to look out of place in our backyard. Spoke with the tile guy tonight and he recommended a natural stone, like slate. He's going to send me a quote - he estimated it would take him about 4 days to do it properly (with mitered edges etc), so it's not going to be cheap! He's also quoting the stucco, painting and plumbing (which involves digging a long trench and cutting a trench thru the tarmac side path).

However, he's booked for the next 3 weeks, so the June 1st date would be out the window.

Some Tile Pictures

Unfortunately, the decision to use tile opens up about 6,000,000 choices. I've been digging around the internet to get some ideas and will stick some here so I can find them later. In no particular order.

Slate tile with small slate edging.....

Rustic looking tile, with diagonal countertops.....

Cool, small tile, different shades of grey.....

Example with just one tile, but diagonal countertop and straight edges.....

Cool, small glass tiles.....

Example of different sizes/shades tiles to add interest

Another example, this time introducing the diagonal layout.....

Cool glass tiles used for the backsplashes.....