Wood Fired Oven, Now Open!

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:


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: