Who doesn’t love a project that takes a little creativity and time, but then they end up with an amazing masterpiece? I know I do. This project has now given me some motivation to try to create new, awesome things for my home. The only problem will be finding some time to do that!
What this father and son did is absolutely amazing. Follow the photos to see how he tells his story from the beginning to the end of this project, and to see the final piece.
Our house has a “dirt slope”. So we dug a hole into the slope.
We built into the slope with some wooden planks to form the outside mold. Then we added concrete and let it dry for 1 week.
Close up of the mold.
First layer of concrete is done.
Added a second layer with some steel for stability.
These little pipes should remove water from the foundation.
With a plastic cup, we created an assembly for rain water.
Works great.
We bought the core at a local mason shop.
Built it together to see if it fits.
We laid down all of the arch parts on the ground and drew a template on some wood, which we then built together with more concrete.
And some insulation.
With our template on the wooden arch, it was simple and easy to assemble those bricks to an arch.
We put nails in every layer of mortar to create a connection to the main layer of concrete on top of the dome
Some layers of insulation.
Next layer is thin aluminum foil
Then a thin layer of steel grid.
And then the first layer of concrete.
Then another layer of the steel grid and again some concrete.
Chimney is pretty straightforward.
Winter was coming, so we had to take a break (Semi-done, but we could already use it).
Over Christmas, we drew some sketches showing how we wanted the roof. So in April, we continued our work and built the basic skeleton out of wood.
Our silly LEGO model. But it worked perfectly.
Now the tiles. First, we wanted to burn our own clay tiles, but we discarded that idea quickly. So we cut waste bags into shape and attached them with staples. This would hold some weeks.
In the meantime, we built tiles out of wooden planks.
To make cleaning easier, we can detach both side of the roof and can access the gaps in the back of the oven.
Then we painted the roof, spread some big rocks around the foundation to hide the ugly concrete.
After 9 months, we have our finished pizza oven.
We also added some IKEA lights to make it more festive.
Are you impressed? I know I am. I cannot believe the final masterpiece. What a fun family project they did together.