Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Wood Fired Oven, Now Open!

wfo in the snow

Ta DA!
The big reveal of the almost finished WFO enclosure complete with mid-October snow which, thankfully, was only temporary.
The enclosure is clad in Hardi-panel with exposed fasteners just like the house, and eventually it will get a couple of coats of paint in the same color as well. The roof is galvanized corrugated steel, a nod to the other component of our houses' exterior finish. I recessed the front wall with the intent to add swinging doors to provide some weather protection for the mosaic I hope to add on that surface next season.
So, not the fully finished, beautified enclosure I hoped to have by this time, but instead a work in progress that I look forward to revisiting again come springtime.
And it was just in the nick of time.
As my awesome luck would have it, I had planned a big neighborhood party for just a few days after the picture was taken, and the weather in the preceding few weeks was so awful that my plan to spend them finishing the whole deal and pretty-ing it up in time for my guests was completely foiled. I had to just go for the important functional bits, one of which was pouring a concrete landing and countertop. In 35ish degree weather, the wet work of pouring and finishing a concrete slab was NO fun. But I survived and the counter turned out just fine. My first foray into casting in place vs. molding, and also my first time working with curves:
concrete countertop on the WFO
concrete countertop with form stripped
I've tidied it up a bit with the diamond pads since, but then I got crazy busy again and still haven't gotten around to giving it a good full-on polishing. I'm sure I'll be kicking myself if I leave it until spring because it will be much harder and harder to work, but that's likely to be what happens. I'm just glad I was able to get it poured in time, as having the extra bit of workspace was great while I was running the oven for a crowd.
We ended up with a pretty big turnout for the grand opening, and I think I did about 40 pizzas total along with a ton of artichoke dip and some roasted veg. Most importantly, we got a weather reprieve just in time...some gorgeous crisp sunny weather which was as good as I could have hoped for after a month of constant rain:
WFO open house 2

7 Comments:

Anonymous grover said...

All this talk and no pictures of the pizzas?!

Been following the progress for a while - it's looking good!

8:00 PM  
Blogger art and chel said...

Damn! Can this thing get any better?! Amazing.

art

11:54 AM  
Anonymous LittleOrchardBrooke said...

I first found your blog maybe 6 months ago, and will be following your footsteps for more than a few projects. Thank you so much for the step-by-step posting of your progress. You make my husband and I feel like we can really do this. Many thanks for the inspiration and major morale boost!

12:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. Beautiful place. I just ran across your blog and have not had time to read it all yet but I plan to...lol. I am curious about how you attached your siding. I need to attach hardie boards and I love the panel look you have. Thanks!

2:30 PM  
Blogger SweetLuna said...

So cool!! It's like having Punch Pizza in your backyard. I'm jealous!!!!

9:54 AM  
Blogger brandeye said...

you built a pizza oven?? you are amazing and so is your house.

6:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I want to see the pizzas too... and a recipe, please. Pretty please. Just for fun.

3:00 PM  

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