How one family built an outdoor entertaining paradise

Home owners: Paul and Deanna Cudina

Location: Shoal Harbour, NSW

The project: Alfresco renovation

The budget: $20,000

Paul’s top tip for renovators: “My principle for anything I do is get the foundations right. It’s key to any project, so spend the time and be patient – it’s no good building on bad foundations.”

It’s not often you’re lucky enough to have a bit of “money sitting around” but that’s where Paul and Deanna Cudina found themselves in 2020. “We were planning a nice overseas holiday to Europe and then Covid came along,” Paul says. “We had this money for the holiday so I thought what better way to spend it than to enhance the backyard with an alfresco area.”

Paul and Deanna are located in New South Wales’ Shoal Harbour and it’s no understatement to say this outdoor entertaining reno was a departure for them. “We’ve always built and as soon as one house needs a coat of paint, we’ll get out and build another one,” Paul says. While his background is in IT project management, Paul says he is very hands on when it comes to D.I.Y. “I’m that sort of person who researches everything down to the nth degree and then, if I have the confidence to do something, I’ll have a crack.”

Armed with this belief, extensive research into outdoor kitchen design and inspiration from the Bunnings Workshop community, Paul spent a few months during Covid lockdowns creating an outdoor kitchen and living space that the family continues to use every day.

Paul’s dream outdoor kitchen

As well as giving the family more space, Paul wanted to create an outdoor cooking zone. “We like to do a lot of cooking and I like to BBQ and cook pizza outside rather than dirtying everything in the house,” says Paul, who’s known as @Funksoulbro1 in the Workshop community. With that in mind, he designed the new area to accommodate multiple styles of cooking.

“We’ve now got a pizza oven, a barbecue and an air fryer out there. There’s also a double fridge and a sink,” he says of the entertaining zone. “When people walk in the front door, they go through the kitchen and we take them straight out there and open the fridge.”

The brief: Keep it low maintenance

Paul had one goal when designing the space: it had to be no fuss and no ongoing effort. “The key for me was to keep it low maintenance,” he says. “The pergola is aluminium and the framework for the deck is galvanised steel, so I never have to worry about the timber rotting or needing to paint. Everything’s hardwearing and just needs a wipe over so it’s really really easy to maintain.”

Paul got a builder to do the framing for the pergola and then he took over the project, building the deck. “The subfloor was built using galvanised steel bearers and joists on a single plane,” Paul says. He then laid the floor using Ekodeck, which is made from composite materials and has a timber finish. “We ordered all of the materials through Bunnings and got it all delivered.”

Making sure nothing was wasted, Paul used the small amount of excess decking as panelling under the BBQ.

Satisfaction guaranteed

Funnily enough the deck was both the easiest part of the job and one of Paul’s biggest challenges. “The Ekodeck was extremely easy to work with and went down so well,” he says. “But – because of the space – each and every one of those boards is 5.4 metres long and they were really challenging to deal with and move around the site.”

For Paul and Deanna though, that's all in the past and now they can just enjoy their alfresco dining area. “It's nice to be able to walk out the backyard – I still do it now – and think, ‘That's something I did’,” Paul says. “We like to sit out in the backyard and have a couple of wines or beers at the end of the day and I look around and go, ‘Yeah, this is nice’.” 

More from Paul and Workshop

To see this project come to life, step by step, check out Paul’s Alfresco extension with outdoor kitchen post. For more projects like Paul’s fantastic entertaining area, visit the Bunnings Workshop community.