Monday, September 10, 2012

Backyard Project-Fire Pit

by Leslie

When we purchased our house, one of the biggest selling points was the yard.  It is large (which is not what we were looking for), but it is beautiful.  There are several vignettes with various flowers and shrubs and we just couldn't say no!  We have a fenced off vegetable garden and an arbor that is covered in a beautiful vine with white flowers.  There are lovely ornamental trees and raspberry bushes already producing fruit!

The other thing we had--

THIS:



 To you, this may look like an innocuous planter.  I mean, I guess that's what you could call it.  But let me tell you, this thing was huge.  It had no purpose.  It had weeds growing all over it and the dirt was packed so solid you couldn't plant anything else in it.  I think it had originally been used to hold some sort of statue or fountain.

My plan?

Tear the thing apart and built a fire pit (hello, s'mores!)

  The only problem was, it was about three feet deep and 5 feet across.  The kicker?  Underneath the top layer of dirt was a whole mess of rocks.

That's when I quit working on this project.  I stayed away for about a month.

Then, one weekend Laura, Derek, and Ella stopped by.  Derek offered to lend us some help, so, thanks to my wonderful husband and brother-in-law, many of those rocks were removed and loaded by hand.  They were dumped behind our shed so we could forget about them.

That's when I quit working on this project for a second time.  I stayed away for another month.

Then, during Labor Day weekend, Jaime and I got to it and finished the damn thing.




Here I am after about my twentieth load of rocks.  It was hot.

Does anyone need any rocks?


This is the state after de-assembling the planter.  Resemble any ancient architecture you know?

 After pulling everything apart, we started to dig a base for the fire pit.  Jaime did some sort of geometric measuring to find the center, then we delved in.  I've never been one for measuring.  Then we took a break to eat lunch.  Jaime took a nap.


Whilst Jaime was napping, I pieced together the pit.  This was not an easy job because some of the pieces were glued together from the former structure.  It ain't perfect, but I don't care.  By the way, I did check out Rochester's city codes for fire pits.  Check out your own city's just to make sure.


Once it got dark, we built ourselves a fire.  I hardly waited for the flames to be lit to make myself a nice s'more.

What do you think?  Fire pit success?


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Monday, September 10, 2012

Backyard Project-Fire Pit

by Leslie

When we purchased our house, one of the biggest selling points was the yard.  It is large (which is not what we were looking for), but it is beautiful.  There are several vignettes with various flowers and shrubs and we just couldn't say no!  We have a fenced off vegetable garden and an arbor that is covered in a beautiful vine with white flowers.  There are lovely ornamental trees and raspberry bushes already producing fruit!

The other thing we had--

THIS:



 To you, this may look like an innocuous planter.  I mean, I guess that's what you could call it.  But let me tell you, this thing was huge.  It had no purpose.  It had weeds growing all over it and the dirt was packed so solid you couldn't plant anything else in it.  I think it had originally been used to hold some sort of statue or fountain.

My plan?

Tear the thing apart and built a fire pit (hello, s'mores!)

  The only problem was, it was about three feet deep and 5 feet across.  The kicker?  Underneath the top layer of dirt was a whole mess of rocks.

That's when I quit working on this project.  I stayed away for about a month.

Then, one weekend Laura, Derek, and Ella stopped by.  Derek offered to lend us some help, so, thanks to my wonderful husband and brother-in-law, many of those rocks were removed and loaded by hand.  They were dumped behind our shed so we could forget about them.

That's when I quit working on this project for a second time.  I stayed away for another month.

Then, during Labor Day weekend, Jaime and I got to it and finished the damn thing.




Here I am after about my twentieth load of rocks.  It was hot.

Does anyone need any rocks?


This is the state after de-assembling the planter.  Resemble any ancient architecture you know?

 After pulling everything apart, we started to dig a base for the fire pit.  Jaime did some sort of geometric measuring to find the center, then we delved in.  I've never been one for measuring.  Then we took a break to eat lunch.  Jaime took a nap.


Whilst Jaime was napping, I pieced together the pit.  This was not an easy job because some of the pieces were glued together from the former structure.  It ain't perfect, but I don't care.  By the way, I did check out Rochester's city codes for fire pits.  Check out your own city's just to make sure.


Once it got dark, we built ourselves a fire.  I hardly waited for the flames to be lit to make myself a nice s'more.

What do you think?  Fire pit success?


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