Last year my little one and I built our own Fire Pit, I posted it July of 2013 and I decided to re-post it this year since the response was so great. There’s nothing like a nice fire in the evening hours to wind down these long summer days. Whether you enjoy a good S’mores, or a glass of wine, the crackling of burning wood is sure to relax. So I thought I'd re-share my step-by-step on how we built it.
First let me start by saying that there are thousands of ways to build your own fire pit. The instruction I’ll lay out below just happens to be a fast, easy, and most importantly inexpensive way to do it. I wanted an old, rustic, “cottagey” look, and I felt this served me the best. Since the pit has been in place for one year now, there are a couple of things I think I would add and I've mentioned them at the end of the post…
What You’ll Need
1. Roughly 40 “old” bricks or pavers
2. Shovel
3. Spray Paint
4. Landscaping Stone i.e. Timberlite, Washed Gravel, Lava Rock etc…
NOTE: You don’t have to buy the bricks for this project, you can easily find
“old”, used brick I collected most of mine from a landscape site.
You can see here that the bricks are pretty beat up!!
Step 1: Lay it out
Lay your bricks out in the pattern that you want.
Step 2: Mark the Diameter
I happened to use paint to trace the edge. I figured I was going to dig it away anyway so no harm done. You can also use chalk or another “marker if you want to be a bit more environmental.
You should now have a nice trace to go by for the diameter of your fire pit.
Step 3: The Fun Part DIG!!
This is where the work comes in! Your depth depends on the pattern and/or configuration of the brick in your fire pit mine happened to be roughly 14” deep. No Audriana did not do most of the digging!!
Step 4: Place your brick & fill with landscape stone
Additional steps:
Like I said in the begining there are a couple of things I would add to the step-by-step.
- As you can see in the image above I backfilled the outside of the pit with soil. If you're able to add a layer of Quikrete to keep the outer ring from shifting.
- I've since cut a piece of plywood to the diameter of the firepit to keep it covered. The cover guards from the rain, and nothing can fall in…like the kids:)
Simply place your brick back into the configuration you started with, and fill the gaps with whatever landscape stone you choose. I chose tumbled gravel because I love the look of it. The stone will help keep your walls and floor in place as well. If you experience freezing winters you may want to “backfill” with concrete, or better yet quickrete. I didn’t use quickrete because I thought I might want to move the pit at some point.
So there you have it your own DIY fire pit instructions. The only expense I incurred on this project was the landscape stone which was a whopping $1.35. The labor was free nothing for me and a couple of S’mores for Audriana.
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