Backyard Pizza Oven Inspiration - 2019

Not my photo.  Not my pizza oven.  Found it here online.

Over the years, I've posted about my pizza oven dreams.  Backyard pizza oven dreams.  All the way back in 2010, I posted this photo of what I THEN called my "Dream Pizza Oven".  And in 2011, I posted another photo that showed off a little 'roof' out front of an oven that I collected as inspiration.  That's close to ten years ago, so this *dream* has been going on for a while - as far back as our original house in Elmhurst.  But, when we moved, the backyard pizza oven dream didn't die and I even posted about the various locations that I could put it here on the blog.  And that brings me to today and *this* oven that you see above.

I came across it online last week and have revisited the photo a few times now.  To be totally clear, that is NOT my photo above.  You can find the original here. 

But, let's look at a few things that jump out to me in terms of pizza oven inspiration.  First, the wood storage box.  One of the things that I really like about this is that the builder limited the depth.  There's room for *just* enough depth to hold wood cut to a specific length.  In our old outdoor fireplace, I built a similar wood-storage box *under* the fireplace, but I used the full depth of the fireplace and it ended up being a dark, dirty den for critters and spiders.  While I don't love the cinderblock showing through (and I'm not sure what the solve is besides veneer there), I *do* love how they've made a place for storage of wood. And not critters. 

The other part that I'm drawn to is that I find this to be somewhat Asian-inspired.  Maybe it is the overall shape of the oven with the flared footprint and angled-in base coupled with the flared/swept-up edges of the roof.  I recently shared some photos of my visit to Gotenyama Gardens in Shinagawa, Tokyo and talked about how I'm being increasingly drawn to their style of lush, fern-heavy gardening.  And maybe that's why I like this? 

Something like this would look great in our backyard, right?  First, I suppose, we need to fix the 'entrance' to our backyard via a side walkway.