The objective was to accommodate the clients needs. He provided me with the "hardware" he desired: a "Egg" oriental cooker, a small refrigerator, a smoker and a old, discarded large butcher block top he found in the garbage. From there, we designed the piece and then I made it.

First I had to come up with some kind of plan to hold these items while also being attractive and functional. No such plan or item existed as this is a unique set of circumstances.

While contemplating the basic scenario, a few extra ideas and features came to mind. How about a shelf above the cooking area? A "back door" to accommodate propane and access to it. Some shelves under the cooking units inside the doors. A nice edge treatment to the top. How about "floating" the cutting board? A replaceable top for the smoker. And, to be really nice, how about beveling all the edges of every face panel? Well, the client agreed with all of them. We both wanted this to be a very special piece.

All these functions, features and elements did create some "engineering" challenges but all were met as they came about and a solution was always found. I had many headaches (pretty much asked for it) but it's always that way when you want to do something beyond the easy and abvious.

The biggest mis-calculation I made on this project was the beveled edges on the face panels. I've used this treatment many times over the years. But ... never so many! It took an awful lot of routering, sanding and staining to get all these panels looking good. Kind of lost some of my profit on that aspect, but that's OK. Try to envision this piece as you see it with bevels compared to just square edge boards - just would not have been nearly as nice. It was worth it. Same thing with the top edging, was a lot more difficult than you would think, but looks very nice.

The finished product was delivered to the client and at that time the fridge, smoker, egg and butcher block top were installed. Thus, in my shop, all the elements were never in place at one time. Later, the client took a couple of photos with everything installed (see photos at the top of this page).

This project also presented one more surpise at the end. The client lives about an hour from my shop. The item was a little too big and heavy for me to try to deliver it myself in my truck so he hired a moving company to move it. I followed the moving truck to his home to install the final items in place. We got the item off the moving truck and carried it around to his backyard. Now, we had to get it into his screened in pool area. Turns out this thing is so big it may not get through the door! But, it did. There was not an inch to spare. We had to get it up on its side, "walk it" in that way and with all those problems, also had his pool right where we were going in - no room - and had to have a guy take his shoes off and be in the pool to control the immediate turn we had to make with this monster on it's end. And the steps of the pool and the little round hanlde thingy at pool steps - in the way of course. So, that was interesting, but it just got in. Had not thought or planned on that but we were lucky it just made it. I don't know what would have happened if this thing were 1 inch longer.