Yup, I Built a Fire Pit!!

   "What have you been up to?" is what I hear a lot. Well...this week, I built a fire pit! It only cost about $60 for the materials, and took about five hours over two days. It all began with Pinterest. I have been pinning homemade firepits. Then, I saw a pin that showed sticking a wading pool in it for your doggies when you're not using it. Voila!

   Here is the first step I took: using the wading pool to dig out the size/shape of my pit, making sure it allowed room for the bricks. While purchasing the pool, I used it to estimate the number of bricks/pavers I needed (I was a little off, but came close).

Next, I began digging the hole. The pile of rocks are from my property. Some of the rocks came from the hole as I dug it. Notice the photo bomb by my weimaraner...

   Once I was happy with the depth of the hole, I placed a layer of rocks at the bottom.

   Next, I added two 50 lb. bags of gravel on top of the rocks. I also used 32 cement bricks on the side.

   Since I dug the hole so deep, I realized I needed more bricks. I figured I would also double check the pavers. Aha! I was short about one.
 

   This is how it looked after adding the next horizontal layer of bricks (17). Note that I chose NOT to use any mortar. We shall see how it holds up during weather. I just didn't want to make it permanent at this time. If it ends up needing mortar, I'll rebuild it, and do that next summer.

   Because of our mountain location and the drought (did you notice my amazing view??), instead of logs, we are using the bottom of our fire bowl (it was free, from my friend Ellen!). It has a screen cover to catch sparks. But, if we get a good snowstorm this winter, woo hoo! Oh, notice the photo bomb by my other dog at the bottom.

   As the sun went down, it was time to fire her up!

    I don't know about you, but MY family loves a wienie roast! Yum!

Sorry about how blurry the photo is (my iPhone is the 'jitterbug' old lady version; i.e. a 3G).

    We have these neat chairs/tables we bought from Sportsman's Guide 6 years ago, and some log 'tables' from a tree that blew down a few years back.

   The hub put some railroad ties for sitting close. My friend gave me some gravel. I am going to gravel this entire part of the property that is now dirt. It is going to look GOOD...

   So, there you have it. An EASY project (the most difficult part was getting the materials up the hill from our driveway), that cost well under $100!!