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"  Come summer, America&amp;#039;s backyards start to sizzle. Tantalizing barbecue smoke wafts through the air, accompanied by the sound of ice tinkling in glasses. That&amp;#039;s the ideal, anyway. If your experience falls short of that, then maybe it&amp;#039;s time to consider something better. By moving beyond a grill and a few folding chairs to a true outdoor kitchen, you combine indoor dining convenience with the satisfying illusion of roughing it just steps away from the back door. Spending on patios, terraces and equipment for those areas has nearly quadrupled in the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2004, that amounted to a staggering $3.7 billion. That makes the growth in outdoor kitchen construction a genuine boom that&amp;#039;s part of a larger trend to make better use of yard space. In the Northeast, 43 percent of homeowners report having an outdoor room. In the Midwest, West and South, it&amp;#039;s 32 to 34 percent, says the Property and Environment Research Center, a think tank in Bozeman, Mont. Of course, not all of those rooms are true outdoor kitchens, but it&amp;#039;s clear that Americans are spending more time outside cooking and relaxing.  An outdoor kitchen is more than a rollaway cart and a barbecue--even if you have a really nice barbecue. &amp;quot;To be considered an outdoor kitchen,&amp;quot; says Sergio de Paula, president of Fogazzo Wood Fired Ovens and Barbecues, &amp;quot;the project must include at least one good-quality cooking appliance--like a gas grill or a wood-fired oven--some counter space and a sink.&amp;quot;Planning that space is a considerable job--this is a lot more complicated than simply rearranging the patio furniture before your next cookout. For homeowners who decide to take the plunge, outdoor kitchens can be a manageable and rewarding DIY project--big, but doable. DIYers often find they can handle the heavy work on their own, and just bring in contractors for skilled jobs, such as hooking up gas appliances. Since the work is done outdoors, it doesn&amp;#039;t disrupt the life of the household. And if you get behind schedule, you can always fall back on the Weber.  The most exciting trend in outdoor kitchen construction is the wood-fired pizza oven. These can be built on-site using fire-resistant brick and mortar, or they can be built from a kit that consists of a multi-piece manufactured masonry shell and other materials such as insulation. Kits make oven construction far more accessible to a DIY builder. Have a look at ovens at these Web sites: wildwoodovens.com and fogazzo.com. Note that the oven drawing at left is a generalized view. These structures can be built different ways. Those who build them and cook with them have strong opinions about what is best. Given that, you will likely encounter widely different types of advice as you do preconstruction research. Get Oriented Proper orientation is key when planning an outdoor kitchen, and that&amp;#039;s every bit as true in the shady Northeast as in the sunny Southwest. A house absorbs heat during the day and radiates it back to its surroundings in the late afternoon and early evening, the prime time for outdoor dining. If you&amp;#039;re positioning the kitchen against the house, or even near it, it&amp;#039;s best to do so along a north-facing wall and not one facing the sunnier and hotter south or west. In all cases, place the seating so that you and your guests are not blinded by the setting sun. Depending on your climate, you may need to shelter the space from the elements. &amp;quot;Wind is the biggest issue we face here,&amp;quot; says Karen Black, a kitchen designer in Oklahoma City. &amp;quot;Landscaping is great. Trees make good windbreaks, or we design a windbreak as part of the construction.&amp;quot; Appliances such as propane-fired heaters help keep an outdoor dining area comfortable in cooler weather, and outdoor-rated ceiling fans mounted on shade structures can help keep things cool when summer temperatures are climbing. Once you figure out where to put the kitchen, think about the specifics of outfitting it. People get tired of running to and from the house for ice or to flip the pancakes. &amp;quot;We put in a lot of ice machines and gas-fired griddles,&amp;quot; says Mike Logan of Texas Pit Crafters, located in the Houston suburb of Tomball. So the kind of cooking you want to do determines appliance choices. A backyard chef who wants to go beyond burgers and steaks into baking pizza and cooking breakfast will need counter space for preparation work and a griddle or, in the case of pizza, an oven. (See &amp;quot;All Fired Up,&amp;quot; below.) Permission Granted The neighbors aren&amp;#039;t the only ones who&amp;#039;ll be interested in your outdoor kitchen. Building officials require a building permit for projects like this. So your first stop is your local building department. Bring a copy of your property survey, a map that shows where your property lines are, and ask for some general advice. Most building inspectors are more than pleased to help an inexperienced, yet conscientious, homeowner.  Building officials won&amp;#039;t tell you how to build the kitchen--that&amp;#039;s not their job. They may suggest you visit a library to look at a copy of the building codes that are used locally. The building department will ask that everything be thoroughly documented, from the wiring and plumbing to the construction specifics of structures, such as pergolas, cabanas and patios. That&amp;#039;s why it pays to carefully plan the project and not apply for a permit until everything is in order. Don&amp;#039;t be surprised, however, if the permit is initially denied despite your best efforts. The building department may request changes to what you plan to build. Don&amp;#039;t be discouraged, it can happen even to the pros. The specifics of an outdoor kitchen can vary greatly, but assuming that it will have a sink, it will require an underground cold-water supply from the house to the counter area. The supply line needs to be installed so that it can be drained in the winter. The sink drain will probably need to be connected to the house&amp;#039;s drain system because the building department won&amp;#039;t allow you to discharge the sink to a dry well. As for electrical power, if you&amp;#039;re planning to have GFCI outlets mounted above the counter, that means hiring an electrician to run buried electrical cable to supply those outlets. A refrigerator and an icemaker will call for additional electrical work. And having an oven, grill or griddle that&amp;#039;s fired by natural gas, not propane, will mean hiring a plumber to install a buried gasline. Begin the design process with a sheet of graph paper. Sketch the components and arrange them in various positions. The two simplest and least expensive arrangements are appliances and a counter configured in a straight line or an L shape. More elaborate counters are U-shaped, G-shaped or circular. The sides of your work triangle--the zone between the sink, the cooking appliance and the fridge--should measure between 4 and 8 ft. Once the sketch is complete, take a tape measure and some stakes and mark out the kitchen area. If the design works, draw up plans to the scale required by the building department. If the department doesn&amp;#039;t specify the scale, you may find that a drawing where 1/2 in. equals 1 ft. is handy. List the dimensions of appliances, counters and cabinets from the top (plan view) and from the front (elevation). Structures such as a pergola require a separate drawing but their location is also shown in the plan view. Here&amp;#039;s a final bit of design advice--opt for materials that require little maintenance. You want surfaces that make it easy to blow off grass clippings and leaves, require little or no paint, won&amp;#039;t rust and are immune to weather damage. Translation: Use masonry, stainless steel, pressure-treated lumber and outdoor-rated tile. If you&amp;#039;re going to button up your outdoor kitchen in the fall, make plans to store its furnishings and to cover the sink, faucet and grill.    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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