We were recently featured in Hearth & Home Magazine for our gorgeous work in outdoor design. We are elated to be noted for our hard work and look forward to doing a dozen more designs in the coming month. If you are thinking about making your backyard beautiful for the holidays, the time to start, is now! Here’s a look at a cozy little corner of one of our award-winning projects.

A dramatic wood burning fireplace is the focal point of this outdoor living space (pictured above). It anchors one end of the gabled pavilion, soaring to the height of the vaulted ceiling. Though beautiful, this massive fireplace did create engineering and masonry challenges on the project.  “The manufactured beam running through the back of the fireplace required many hours of masonry work to make it look just perfect,” says builder Ryan Guikema.

That kind of attention to detail is evident in the entire Outdoor Room. The stone on the fireplace is carried through on the outdoor kitchen island and the seat wall. The seat wall itself is finished with cast-stone caps and low voltage lighting; it surrounds the entire project to define the perimeter of the room.

The ceiling of the pavilion is made of tongue-and-groove pine that has been whitewashed to contrast with the darker cedar beams. There are also curved corbels, rack bracing to match the beams, and columns finished in cedar.

An outdoor fireplace is a great addition to any outdoor living space. It adds warmth, ambiance and can be a great place to hang a TV in your outdoor space. While a fireplace is nice and cozy it does require regular maintenance to function correctly and burn safely during cooler months. Here are some steps you can take to make sure your outdoor fireplace is ready to perform in the cool weather for many years.

Inspection

Cleaning

Burn

Monitor

Between professional inspections it is important for you to regularly monitor the condition of your outdoor fireplace. Soot and creosote can build up inside the firebox and chimney and can make the fireplace very unsafe. If you don’t know how to recognize these build ups ask you chimney sweep to show you what to look for. If you notice a build up of soot and creosote in your fireplace have it cleaned before you build a fire in it again.