THE GREASE RULE — never wood under the working end of a grill: a single season of drippings stains cedar permanently and feeds the ember that lands in the gap. Every Cookfire cook zone is composite or stone, and the card prices it that way from the start. (555) 095-3348.
What we do
Three kitchens, one discipline
The grill bay — from $14,800
A working line, not a grill on a deck: stone or composite counter at thirty-six inches, cold storage and fuel storage separated by code, task lighting aimed where the tongs land, and the frame under it all doubled for the weight. The grease rule applies to the whole bay — composite or stone from the kettle to the counter edge.
The dining deck — from $61/sq ft
Sized to the table you own plus forty inches a side, boards gapped for this valley’s humidity, cedar where the food is not and composite where it might be. Guards to the thirty-six-inch line with the four-inch sphere tested, and a sightline from the kitchen window — because dinner outside is run from inside.
The pergola line — from $7,400
Rafters computed to the county’s forty-pound snow load rather than the shade brochure’s assumption, posts footed to frost like everything else we build, and slat spacing chosen by when you eat — dense over the west face, open to the long evening light the Glen is famous for.
Added to any line, printed before the build
The kitchen card — modules, priced to bolt together
Every module below bolts onto any Cookfire line, and each one is priced on the card before the build rather than discovered on an invoice after it.
Stone counter run, installedfrom $196/ln ft
Granite or quartz on a doubled frame · bullnose to the walk side
Cold-storage drop-in, framedfrom $2,900
Refrigerator drawer on its own circuit, code clearance behind
Composite cook-zone upgrade+$840
The grease rule, applied — capped boards under the working end
Task & path lighting runfrom $1,240
Wired before the boards, aimed at the counter, dimmed at the table
Rail & guard code packagefrom $142/ln ft
36 and 42 in guards, sphere-tested, cable or cap style
Pergola shade extensionfrom $1,680
Slats added to an existing Cookfire pergola, west face first
How it goes
From first sketch to first fire
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
The kitchen interview
What do you actually cook?
Two hours at your table: the grill you own or covet, the crowd you feed, who runs the line while the host circulates. The deck gets drawn around the answers, not the other way round.
The drawing week
Counter heights and snow loads
A scaled plan with the appliances named, the frame’s extra members marked, the pergola rafters computed to forty psf, and one fixed price carrying the slope, the access and the grease rule.
Footing week
Foundations for stone
A counter run of granite is a floor, not a table: piers at frost depth, doubled under every bearing point, inspections booked before the frame closes over our work.
Frame & surfaces
Cedar out, composite under
Joists at twelve-inch centres, utilities routed and inspected, then the surfaces: composite or stone across the cook zone, cedar on the living side, both gapped for the valley’s air.
First-fire night
We light it, you eat
Appliances set and level, lighting aimed, guards sphere-tested, the pergola shading exactly the hour you eat. We bring the bread; the first pizza is yours to ruin.
The last two seasons
Dinners we framed
Six kitchens photographed at first-fire night — the hour the sun study promised, the light where the tongs land, nothing styled but the bread.
Since 2017
The company, in figures
Every other builder drew us a deck with a grill on it. Cookfire asked what we cook, drew the counter at my elbow height, put stone where the drippings land and cedar everywhere else, and rafted the pergola for the February that actually happens here. At the harvest dinner — forty people, two grills, one October downpour sheltered by those computed slats — my father-in-law asked for the drawings. He frames houses for a living and wanted to see the load math. They handed it over with the bread basket.
The grease rule sounded like an upsell until I saw my brother-in-law’s cedar deck a year on — the cook zone is a permanent shadow. Ours is composite under the kettle and it hoses off like a kitchen counter should. Cheaper than the brother-in-law’s spring sanding, annually.
They doubled the frame under the stone run and invited the inspector to look before it closed — “you’ll want this documented,” they said, and my insurer agreed at renewal. The deck is the room now; the kitchen inside is where we keep the fridge.
Our platform is forty inches off grade at the far corner, and the rail package came with a four-inch block they tested everywhere our toddler’s arms could theoretically go. He has tried. The block won, the rail won, and dinner still has the view.
The five every cook asks
Asked at the kitchen table
Anything else, the kitchen line answers between eight and six, or kitchen@cookfiredeck.example any hour — usually from beside a grill.
Composite or wood around a grill?
The grease rule: composite or stone under the working end, because drippings stain wood permanently and the ember that falls in a gap does its worst on cedar. Wood everywhere it will never be spilled on — the smell and the feel earn their keep on the living side of the deck.
Can my existing deck carry a stone counter?
Sometimes, and the test is honest: a counter run is a floor, not a table — we check the framing against the load before anyone falls in love with granite. Where the frame needs doubling we quote the doubling; where it cannot be saved we say so and price the rebuild.
What does the pergola actually do in winter?
It carries forty pounds per square foot of snow on paper and in the county inspector’s file, which is the difference between a shade structure and a liability. Ours stand through Glen Februarys on the same footings as the deck — posts to frost, rafters computed.
Do I need a rail on a raised cook platform?
Above thirty inches of grade, yes — guards at thirty-six inches minimum with no gap a four-inch sphere passes, and on the tall read, forty-two. It is the least negotiable number on the card, and the one we test with a block, not a glance.
How deep do the footings go under a kitchen?
To frost like everything else — forty-two inches here — but more of them, and doubled under every bearing the appliances add. A deck that carries a fridge, a stone run and a February snowdrift is a structure, and it is footed like one.
Kitchen interviews booked across both towns · (555) 095-3348 · kitchen@cookfiredeck.example · the first fire is on us
Tell us what you cook
The interview takes two hours at your table and decides the whole drawing — the grill, the crowd, who runs the line. The fixed number that follows carries the slope, the snow and the grease rule. kitchen@cookfiredeck.example