firepit DIY

With summer just around the corner we’ve been doing some outside projects to get ready for my favorite time of year. We got a lot of snow this past winter so most of the outdoor projects involve repairing and repainting. I don’t love doing these sort of projects because you don’t always see big results but I know they have to be done. One project we did this past weekend was to repair the rocks on our firepit that we made last year. This fire pit is awesome! It got a ton of use during the cooler summer nights and all through the fall. And it held up pretty well through the winter. But a few rocks needed to be reattached {I’m thinking a bunch of teenage boys might have had something to do with this!}. This was one of those little fixing projects that I didn’t mind doing because we all were dying to get the fun fire pit back to its original form!

I wanted to share the original tutorial and photos of how we made this fire pit with you so you might be inspired to make one of your own. It’s my kind of DIY – easy, cheap and not too time consuming. And it looks great too!

We have a gravel patio that was a swing set area. We wanted the fire pit in this area to be very rustic and camp-like. Something that the kids could help build and use. We gathered a bunch of rocks from our yard and made a quick trip to the local hardware store for a few supplies. We spent about $10. Here’s what we did:

Materials:

Steps:

1) Clear and level the area where you want the fire pit to go. We have ours on a gravel ground so we just shoveled the gravel away and smoothed out the ground underneath. Out fire pit is about 4 feet in diameter.

2) We are lucky to have lots of ledge and rocks on our area. I guess you could also say we’re unlucky too since ledge and rocks also bring lots of other problems – like major digging issues – but for this project we’re lucky. We collected all the rocks we could find in our wheel barrel. For the most part, they are about 8-10″ with some smaller ones to fill in the holes. Pick out the larger rocks to use as your base and line them around in a circle.

3) Mix the concrete according to package instructions {basically just add water}. We mixed ours in an old wheel barrel but you can use a bucket. Use the trowel to scoop out the concrete and use it as “glue” to hold the rocks together. Again, we were going for the rustic look so you can see some of the cement but this worked fine with our variation of rocks.

4) Start picking the rocks that will go on the next tier. This is like doing a puzzle or the game jenga. It was fun – and challenging – because I was never really good at puzzles. Continue layering the cement between the rocks to hold them in place.

5) Continue layering the rocks and adding the cement between each layer until you reach the desired height. We went with 4 tiers of rocks and seemed to angle them in a bit. We used smaller rocks to fill in any open holes.

6) Let the cement harden. We added a layer of sand on the bottom of the fire pit to give it a more finished look. When the cement is completely dry, add logs and light!

This fire pit style is not for everyone. We liked the rustic, campfire feel of it, and the fact that it was easy to make was a huge bonus. Plus limited measuring and mistakes are ok with this style!

This fire pit got so much use and repairing it was easy. If any of the rocks fall off, go to STEP 3 – replace the rocks and add cement as needed. In hindsight we should have used more cement originally. live & learn!