Firepit Update
I made a ton of progress on the fire pit this weekend. No pictures yet. I should have documented the process but I was focused on the work. Saturday was such a beautiful day that as soon as we were back from voting and grabbing an awesome lunch, I headed for the backyard. Last weekend, we hauled most of the big wall bricks from the front yard to the back and began to lay out a layer for size and position. After reading this article, I grabbed a shovel and removed the outer ring of sod and dug down about 8". We had four 5-gallon buckets of pea gravel left over from some foundation work a couple years ago that have been taking up space in the garage ever since. I used two buckets of gravel to lay down a shallow layer for leveling and drainage. Then went the inner circle of sod. Going to use the sod to fill in what used to be the flower bed in front of the slab gate. Laying the initial layer of bricks wasn't too bad and as I was working on the first layer, I began to lay down the second layer to get a better idea of how it was going to look. I finished Saturday night with about an 8" space to fill on the first layer and a halfway complete second layer.
Sometime Sunday afternoon, I headed back out to finish the walls. Now for the fun part...brick breaking time. I chipped off about an inch or two from an already broken brick and got it to fit snuggly in the open space. Layer one complete!!! Ditto for the second layer. I didn't have any other mostly-broken brick so Will took over for the big job. Layer two complete!!! As he was making the final piece for me, I started to lay the top layer. Finding pieces that fit together in a circle-ish shape using pieces cut to fit an 11-foot circle was a challenge. But after a number of permutations I found a winning combo.
I'm very happy with how it looks. I can't wait to line it, fill it, and find a metal bowl (or have one made). I'm sure we know someone who can fabricate one for us. I wouldn't think it's that difficult. :^D





