So, you’re planning an outdoor kitchen and don’t know where to begin. Pinterest is not only a great place to research outdoor kitchen ideas, it’s also a convenient way to organize your ideas. For those who have never really gotten into Pinterest, don’t stop reading here. I just may convince you to check it out.
Why Pinterest is a Great Planning Tool
In my early days of homeownership, anytime I was planning a decorating or renovation project, I would buy a bunch of magazines and start snipping out photos to put into a file. To be honest, I was a bit of a snip-aholic, so I had a half-dozen or so magazine subscriptions and would regularly buy others at grocery and hardware store news stands. Not only would I snip for a specific project, but often just to add to my bank of ideas. If I REALLY liked an idea, I would put it on my bulletin board or refrigerator. Otherwise, it would go into a file folder.
Well, Pinterest is like having an enormous library of magazines and bulletin boards at your fingertips. In fact, the entire concept behind the Pinterest platform was to create a place to store and share idea boards. So, I went from snipping to pinning, threw my file folders into the recycle bin, and have never turned back.
Getting Started
You can operate Pinterest from either a web browser or phone app (or both). When you create your Pinterest account, it’s easy to choose your level of privacy. I only use Pinterest to organize ideas for myself, so I have zero personal information on my account and have not linked it to my Facebook page (although, that’s an option). I don’t want to get a bunch of notifications and emails, so I have all of that turned off. I log on when I’m looking for ideas, and I log out when I’m done. Most of my boards are private.
But that’s me. The beauty of Pinterest is that you can be as social as you like and personalize the amount of information that’s automatically sent to you. You can set Pinterest to send you ideas (either through email or push notifications) of boards or pins that might interest you based on your searches. You can follow friends, brands or favorite magazines and see their activity in your feed. Or you can just search for a topic as needed, save the pins you like to a personal board, and call it a day. Easy peazy.
And, you can change those settings at anytime. When you’re in research mode, you may want to turn on some of those notifications and let the algorithms do some of the work for you.
Setting Up Your Idea Boards
Setting up a board is as easy as clicking a “plus” sign and naming the board. If you don’t want others to find your board, you can set it to “secret” so that only you can view it. It actually tickles me that this platform uses the word “secret” instead of “private,” like you’re planning a big reveal. Maybe you are. But if you like the thought of publicly sharing ideas with others, Pinterest was definitely created as a social media platform, and your idea boards may actually be helpful to others doing research on the same topic. You can also use boards as a way of promoting a business or side-hustle.
For the purpose of planning an outdoor kitchen project, I would suggest setting up multiple boards — one general “kitchen ideas” board for the outdoor kitchen designs that just speak to you as a whole, plus individual boards for different elements of the design.
- Grill Islands
- Countertops
- Lighting
- Decor
- Patio pavers (or decking)
- Landscaping
- Furniture
- Appliances
You don’t have to store images on only one board, but can very easily pin them to multiple boards.
Collecting & Sharing Pins
Finding ideas is easy, and can honestly turn into quite the rabbit hole. Simply search a brand or a topic (like “outdoor brick ovens“) and start sifting through the wealth of gorgeous Pins (images and videos). Often, a Pin will link to a company website, which is super handy when it comes time to make purchasing decisions. Click on the Pin for more info, or click the “Save” button to save the Pin to one or more of your boards. You can also choose to “Follow” a company or person whose ideas you like. And here’s a cool relatively new feature: Lens. The Lens feature uses a recognition algorithm that allows you to select an element within the photo and find similar images. Crazy, right?!
For your outdoor kitchen, get started by checking out the following Belgard Pinterest Boards:
Now for my favorite thing about Pinterest, the ease of which you can click an icon to share your ideas. Share them with friends to get feedback. Share them with your spouse or significant other. Share them with your contractor. You can share an entire board or a single Pin. You can copy the link to send as a text, or you can share directly to another Pinterest user or via email, Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp.
Time to start pinning!
Now that I’ve convinced you to toss out your file folders (please recycle), it’s time to open your browser or the Pinterest app on your phone and start pinning. Have fun researching!
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For grilling tips and recipes, check out our Recipes for Company library. For a chance to win a FREE Belgard Grill Island plus a 12-month subscription to Omaha Steaks, click the image below. No purchase necessary.
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