Outdoor Patio and Kitchen Made for Entertaining!

We bought this house specifically for the large property it had for a home in the Los Angeles area. It's rare to find a lot this size. The problem was that we loved to entertain outdoors and there was no place to really put a patio table or barbecue. The grass area outside the back of the house was unlevel, uninviting, and had a large, messy tree - and roots all over that were close to pipes. We gave the rose bushes to some friends, too. My husband had a vision. He envisioned a large deck and outdoor kitchen area.
It took him 3 back breaking years, with help from friends, to get the whole deck complete. He and his friend designed it to curve along the back driveway {there is actually more grass yard further back, also} so the whole thing has a curve. The outdoor kitchen is used weekly for entertaining all our friends and family. He was able to find a dent and ding large DCS 48 inch grill - and believe me, he uses every square inch when we have large crowds - and paid half the cost for it on Ebay and picking it up himself. He also found the outdoor burners that way, too.
My husband spent countless hours carefully making sure everything was strong and secure.It's a huge deck - about 700 square feet - and hold a large amount of people on it. There was on problem we encountered once it was done - it was HOT! The deck is west facing and you literally bake on there. So, we hired a contractor to design a unique patio cover that would expand the entire deck using steel beams - with wood beams, you'd have to have support beams in the middle of the deck and we didn't want to interrupt the openness of the deck. This contractor designed the steels beams and then cloth covers that can open and close. We also had curtains put along the outside - this helps block the hot sun in the summer and it also helps keep the warmth inside in the winter - we eat outside year round!
For more details, please see blog post below pictures. If you'd like to have a specific tour - my husband and I gave a full tour via Google Hangout with Miriam last year where he explains everything in detail about construction and I talk all about decorating here: https://plus.google.com/events/che2rjjf03fah4dnmhle9513npg
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