Mobile Outdoor Kitchen

I built a portable outdoor kitchen that houses our charcoal grill, electric smoker, and all of our grilling/smoking accessories. I made it portable so we could store it against the house, out of the way and somewhat protected by our eaves, but then pull it away from the house when grilling/smoking to allow for better ventilation.

Sometimes when I build, I start with an exact plan and follow it. Sometimes the path is a bit more improvisational. This project definitely evolved as I went along (and was built with scrap lumber had on hand), and the Instructable will reflect that. 

SUPPLIES

¾’’ thick boards, enough to build a table top and shelves (my total square footage was ~15.2 square feet)

6 11x20x ¾’’ particle board (This was scrap I had lying around, used for the base)

2 56’’ 2x4s (base)

2 20’’ 2x4s (base)

8 32’’ 2x2s (legs)

4 23’’ 2x2s (under the tabletop)

Additional scrap 2x2s to support the particle board

4 2 inch casters with brakes

2 2inch outdoor hinges

Exterior polyurethane (less than 1 quart required)

Exterior latex paint (Behr Cracked Pepper, about 1 quart required)

1.25’’ and 2.5 ‘’ screws

Wood Glue

Medium Grit Sandpaper

Camp Stove Fuel (to clean up polyurethane)

TOOLS

Table Saw (optional)

Miter Saw (optional)

Planer (I don’t have one/didn’t use one, but if you had one, it would make the table top infinitely nicer)

Circular Saw

Jig Saw

Palm Sander

Kreg Pocket Hole Jig (optional)

Drill

Paint Brush / Paint Roller

Lots of clamps – large cabinet clamps and small clamps

Right angle guide

Right angle clamp

I designed a table top that was 23.5 x 56. (Traditional countertops in the US are 24 in deep) 56 inches gave enough length to fit both cooking devices and give us shelf space for our supplies. The space below the tabletop needed to accommodate a 33 inch tall smoker and a 28 inch tall grill. I placed the grill on a low shelf so that it would be the proper height. Because our smoker has electronics and a vent on the top, I also needed a way to open the table top when using the smoker. I included a trap door in the table top so that when we are using the smoker we can open it to access the controls / allow smoke to vent, but we can close it when we are grilling, giving us even more table space to work on.

I wanted the “outdoor kitchen” on wheels given where we were storing it. The base + casters resulted in a countertop that is more cocktail table height than countertop height (which is, admittedly, a slightly awkward height for flipping burgers on the grill…but it seems like the best option given everything I was trying to achieve). 

I used salvaged ¾’’ thick pine boards for the tabletop. Most of the lumber was in good shape, but I ripped pieces down to random widths so that I could use the flattest, most knot free portions of the salvaged wood. I used my table saw to cut the boards, then I laid them out (pictured). After getting a layout that made a nice table top and covered the dimensions I wanted (ignoring the gaps that would be cut out for the grill anyways), I did the following things to make the table top:

A)     Glued boards together, securing with clamps and laying weights across the top to make sure nothing popped up while drying

B)     Note that I kept the trap door pieces separate from the rest of the boards. I did not glue them to the overall tabletop, instead leaving them as a separate piece to be attached later with hinges.

C)     Filled cracks where the boards didn’t meet perfectly with wood glue and sawdust (if I had planed things, this wouldn’t have been a problem, but…here we are)

D)     Cut out the grill hole by first tracing the shape of the grill lid and then freehanding the cut with a jigsaw

E)     Squared the tabletop up using a right angle as a guide and cutting the edges with a circular saw

A)     I used scrap 2x4’s to make the perimeter of the base. Before doing any building with the 2x4’s, I ripped about 1/8’’ off of each side of the 2x4’s using a table saw. Doing this causes the edges of the 2x4 to be perfectly square rather than having that little bit of rounding that dimensional lumber has. It makes your projects look a little cleaner, especially where you have 2 pieces of dimensional lumber coming together, but it’s a totally optional step for a project like this.

B)     I cut the 2x4’s to size (2 56 inch long pieces, 2 20 inch long pieces).

C)     To support the center of the base, I attached a bunch of scrap 2x2 pieces ¾ in below the top of the 2x4.

D)      I assembled the 2x4 rectangle using my pocket jig to make holes (totally unnecessary, but I like to hide my fasteners) and then a corner clamp to help me make sure the base was a perfect right angle. (If you don’t own a corner clamp, it’s a worthy investment)

E)     Then I cut the middle base boards to 20 inches long. I had 11 inch wide ¾ inch thick particle board leftover from other stuff, so that’s what I used (I doubt the particle board stands up super well to the outdoors, so if I were purchasing materials, I would buy more pine boards or something).

F)      I fit the particle board inside the rectangle and attached with 1.25’’ screws.

G) I attached the casters to the base

A)     Rip the 2x2’s to have perfectly square corners.

B)     Cut 2x2’s to appropriate lengths for the table top

C)     (Optional) Use the miter saw to cut 45’s into the boards that support the top

D)     I used the corner clamp to help me assemble the leg pieces. Note that the far right and far left front legs were all the way forward and the middle legs were set back ~10 inches. I did this to enable easy access to the latch on the door of the smoker

Since I built this without an exact plan, I put it loosely together at this point so I could see how it was going to work / decide on where exactly I wanted the middle 2 sets of legs to go / figure out what sort of shelving made sense. From this process I then determined the dimensions for the shelves.

The shelf-making process was basically identical to the table top. The final dimensions of the two shelves were 16.25 x 17 and 24 x 23.5. This was based on Step 5.

To make the rounded corner for the larger shelf that the grill would sit on, I used a 5 gallon bucket as my radius. I traced the bucket (as shown in the picture) and then did another freehanded round cut with a jigsaw. 

I sanded everything with a medium grit sandpaper, then I painted the base and legs with a dark grey exterior paint. I finished the shelves and top with spar urethane. 

I attached things more permanently than I did in Step 5. I used pocket holes to attach the shelves to the legs (this is again, not necessary, and not the strongest way to attach the shelves. However, nothing they’re supporting is that heavy so I think it’s fine.) I also installed the hinges for the trap door. I attached the table top to the legs with screws underneath.