Summer Kitchen

My house is wonderfully insulated. We have 12" outside walls- mostly styrofoam and windows on the inside and outside of that- creating very insulated windows.

In the winter all I have to do to heat the house is bake some cookies/muffins/whatever I want and the house stays warm all day, and night.

But in the summer- the house also keeps all of its heat/cool. We live in northern Minnesota, so most of the time we need nothing more than fans in a few windows to keep cool, if I add no heat to the house by cooking.

Every get tired of cold meals? After a nice week of 80 degrees, I get really want a hot, cooked meal. ( and due to my food allergies, restaurants don't provide much for me).

So I decided to build a summer kitchen. They used them often 100 years ago. Mostly it was an outdoor tent/bower with a cooking fire/stove. Jelly, jams and other preserves were often done outside all summer long, along with their regular food production.

So I came up with the crazy idea to build my own.

A friend was selling a screen tent- I bought it. Yesterday I set it up. Inside the tent is our picnic table, and I will pick up a work surface at a second-hand store- some kind of table/counter/desk. I bought a spray handle for my garden hose and will grab an outdoor extension cord from my garage. That way I can use my toaster oven/crockpots/rice cookers. I also plan to bring out my Coleman camp stove and my camping dishes. It should be awesome.

Of course it is raining all day today- so using it/working on it is going to have to wait another day.