DIY Outdoor Firepit Tutorial, Part 2

Ok! We're back. Sorry for the delayed posting of part 2....

When we last left off, we had just laid out the veneer for the firepit facing. While this sort of helped, at the end of the day it mostly became a crap shoot as flat ground does not equal round firepit.

Anyway, we started placing the veneer at the top and worked our way across and down sort of simultaneously. We used Type S mortar and added in a colorant to make it a sort of rusty brown. (*Full disclosure, three years later, it just looks dirty.) We felt good about it at the time....

During this stage, it helped to have two people working as the mortar tended to sieze up pretty quickly. It was fairly late in the season (October, I believe) and we were working against the elements.

The picture above shows the first 25% and the mortar looks really nice at this point! The level had no use at all during this stage - no idea why it's there!

We're getting a little further around the firepit and have started scattering pieces on the top to get a sense of what might work. More on that later....

In this shot, you can see how we started to use bricks and pieces of wood to keep the veneer in place. Since the weather was not ideal (cooler than we would have liked), the veneer had the potential to slip. But, at this point the entire pit has been faced. Next, we would have to move on to the inside.

For the inside, we discussed a lot of options. Some argued that you could just leave it as it was (concrete blocks), but we felt strongly that 1) we didn't like the look and 2) it wouldn't hold up. Water would likely soak into the blocks and could potentially create some problems during a fire. So, we did some research and bought firebricks. These bricks measure about 9" in height, 4.5" wide, and 1.25" deep. We used Type N mortar for the bricks and positioned them vertically because of the inner curve. We didn't leave a lot of spacing in between each brick. You can see an example of the brick on top of the cement block in the center of the pit. For the second course, we stacked them directly on top - no offsetting here!

Of course, we had ANOTHER discussion about whether to leave the bricks the way they were or paint them. We landed on painting them, and I loved the end result. I will tell you, finding firebrick stain is incredibly difficult (and expensive). I think I found mine through a retailer in Missouri! (Gotta love the Internet!) We used  Alsey Firebrick Stain in Jet Black. I believe there may be other products out there, now, but a few years ago options were limited. I want to say it was $50/quart and we bought 1 quart. I think the results were worth it, though!

We also laid the top at this point. We used fieldstone for the top and placed them in a pattern that was less random than you would think. I will warn you, this stage was TEDIOUS! Trying to maintain some type of inner and outer circle was aggravating, but I think we achieved what we were going for. We used Liquid Nails adhesive to glue the stone down and then used more colored mortar in between. You can see the mortar when it is wet in the top picture and after it had dried in the picture below it.

Finally ready for the first fire and celebratory glass of wine!

We added landscaping stone the following spring. You can see how the mortar color had really toned down over the winter!

Thanks for stopping by! This was a labor of love, for sure, but it is my favorite home improvement project thus far!! We use it all the time beginning in the Spring and go as far into the winter as we possibly can before calling it a day! It is a great place to connect with friends and family and our daughter and her friends sit out there quite frequently as well.

Up next - laying flooring in a sunroom. 

Thanks for stopping by and spackle on!

Maureen

DIY Outdoor Firepit Tutorial, Part 1

Welcome back!!

I have always wanted an outdoor firepit. In the midwest, there is nothing better than sitting outside with a beverage and a roaring fire in the evening. Especially in the fall!

Shortly after we bought our house, a severe windstorm split a century oak in our backyard in half. Right down the middle. Half stayed up, half fell on a neighbor's house. (Sidenote: a tree falling on your neighbor's house does not lead to potlucks and wine tastings)

Anyway, this is what we were left with after the tree was removed:

The DH and "The Stump"

Isn't it pretty? Why, you might ask, would you ever change it? Well, for 1.5 years we didn't, at least not much. Mostly because when it comes to landscaping, we suck. Really, really suck. We don't have houseplants because they die, and quickly.

Finally, we actually did reach a level of embarrassment that propelled us into action. Problem was, we had no clue what we were going to do. By chance, I drove past a landscaping company and saw a teeny tiny firepit that they had on their grounds to give people an idea. Went in and asked who made it, called the guy......no answer.


I have a picture of the inspiration, but can't find it. I'll update once I do!

Not to be deterred, I convinced the DH we could do this ourselves. How hard could it be? So we cleared the land and started on our way.

DH is an engineer, so it involved many plots and graphs so we could get it just right. Yah, those didn't really help.

We tried a square shape, which would have been easier, given that concrete blocks are, well, blocks!

But, that didn't seem right. A circle would work much better. So, after measuring the distances between two garages and a fence, we leveled the ground and jumped right in. (You may notice that, in between, we also decided it would be a GREAT time to add some fence panels to our side of the fence.)

We used spray paint to outline the circle. We drove a piece of ribar into the ground, tied some rope to it and then tied the other end to the can of spray paint and then walked around the ribar in a circle, keeping the rope taut.

After getting a general sense of what it would look like, we dug out the circle for the footer. We dug down about 4 inches and used landscaping edging to help retain the shape of the circle when we poured the concrete. Before we poured in the concrete, we put about 2 inches of very small landscaping stone in to accommodate drainage. We were trying to get the concrete as level as possible, so you see a small block of wood and a small level in my hand that I would use as I worked my way around the circle. (Not gonna lie, I was pretty impressed that from every direction it was level!) I also used small blocks of wood to keep the concrete in place as I moved around. That enabled me to work in smaller sections.We used Quikrete all-purpose concrete for this section.

After we let the concrete set for a few days, it was time to place the first row of concrete blocks. We used 8"x8" blocks to give us a better chance of keeping the circle shape intact. We thought about using 8"x16"s vertically, but it became pretty clunky.

The center block was for me to sit on. Stone turtle underneath is optional.

The difficult part of this process was keeping the concrete between the wedges in place. We would hold our hands there for a few minutes until it began to set, and then move on to the next section. This is definitely a two-person job. At this stage, we also added the smaller landscaping stone to the middle of the pit - again for drainage. We did not add drainage holes to the pit itself. We debated about whether we should but decided that the finished height of the pit (which would be about 16" above ground) didn't require it. After using it for 3 years, we've had no issues (knock on wood).

The turtle is gone!

For the top section, we offset the blocks so they were not directly above the row below. This provided greater stability. Had the same concrete issues with the wedge sections as we did on the first row. For both rows we used a total of 38 8"x8" blocks (19 on each row).

You can see the beginning of the retaining wall in the background.....

Once that was set, it was time to move on to our facing.We discussed many options, but finally landed on a stone veneer in a Pennsylvania Ledgestone design. We laid out the courses ahead of time, but it really didn't help since once we started placing the stones on the pit, our entire plan fell apart. What looked like it would work when laid flat absolutely didn't work on a 3-D surface. The key here was to be flexible. We had many boxes to choose from (since we knew we were also going to build a planting bed) so that helped. We used a product by Dutch Quality Stone and loved it. You can find more information here http://www.dutchqualitystone.com/.

Note: we paid for these products ourselves and have received no compensation from Dutch Quality Stone. Just thought we'd give you the link if you were interested.

I'll put up the next phase of the project next week! Thanks for visiting.

Spackle on!

Maureen

Welcome!

Well, I've been threatening my husband that I was going to do this for quite a while, so a slow day at the office coupled with a chai and a diet coke have resulted in this. If you've gotten to this blog, you're either bored, desperate, or actually interested in DIY projects. Hopefully, it's the latter, but if it's either of the first two, still stick around!

So, DH and I have now purchased two homes that have all the charm, character, and associated headaches of a century home. OK, so technically our current home has 8 more years to go, but who's counting? Our first home was truly a charming Sears catalog home (no, I didn't make that up!) built in 1903 in Colorado Springs. We really did love it and, given that it was relatively small in size, we figured we couldn't screw it up too badly, although we put in the good ol' college try. Most of our projects in that house were the direct result of fixing something "those people" did in the house. You know who I'm talking about. "The Former Owners." (Cue scary music and flickering lights)

Every time we would come across something that was, quite frankly, asinine in the house, we'd say, "what were 'those people' thinking?" Or "why would they do something like that?" Or the always eloquent and colorful, "What the $&@* were they smoking?" That last one didn't come out frequently but, when it did, you could bet we were in a cluster.

The projects started innocently enough. Painting a room here, changing out light fixtures there. You know, pretty benign stuff. We were in our first house and began to feel a little cocky. Strip entire rooms of woodwork with Dremels, heat guns, and paint remover? Sure! Run a 220 wire across the room to move the stove? Absolutely! Gut the kitchen and completely move everything (except the kitchen sink)? Sign. Me. Up!

Along the way, we've had some missteps (someone HAS caught their latex glove on fire while stripping wood; someone has also almost been electrocuted - that someone may, or may not, have been the same person), but over the years we have become more savvy about our projects and more adventurous.

So, what's in store? Well, we've been in our current house in Northeast Ohio for 7 years and a few projects have taken place. In no particular order, we'll have blogs about the following coming up:

An outdoor firepit
A retaining wall/flower bed
Installing flooring
A family room remodel
A 'tween suite upgrade
Poor man's kitchen upgrade using Annie Sloan Chalk Paint
How to build a lounger for the 'tween suite
A bathroom remodel featuring a penny floor

We'll also talk about disasters, such as when the third floor radiator leaked all day through our daughter's bedroom into the kitchen. That. Was. Awesome!

So come back and visit and let us know what you think! Less words, more pictures in the future. What's not to like?

Spackle on!

Maureen