I promised in yesterday’s post that I had a fun project to share, and I do! I’m going straight to the after photo, because I am that excited!
This is something that my husband and I always wanted to do. We love sitting outside at night after the kids go to bed, but we never had a great place to do that. Our yard is still a wild mess and it always feels buggy and dark and a little like being in the middle of a forest, not in a good way. We had a decrepit little patio in the back of the house. There were ancient patio tiles that were covered in moss and totally uneven. It’s also tiny. This weekend, after a really crappy week, I said to my husband, “I need to do something this weekend to get me out of this funk”. Firepit was the answer. And, it worked. I don’t know if it was the heavy work or the feeling of accomplishing just a small goal, but I do feel better.
Here’s the no good, ugly before:
Wow, it was really bad. I think I have already blocked this from my memory. We started with ripping out those patio tiles. You should know that I have a terrible fear of bugs and this was not fun for me. There were many earth worms that became two earthworms at the hands of the screw driver I used to pry up the tiles. Once the tiles were out, there was clean sand. Whoever put these in all those years ago did a good job because there were almost no weeds growing through. We decided to replace the patio with crushed stone. It’s not a long term solution for us. Someday, we are going to put a deck back here, but that’s at least a year away and the stone worked for some instant gratification that we won’t be sorry we spent about $50 on down the line. Here’s the stone we chose:
It’s currently $3 a bag at Home Depot. While I was at the Depot, I grabbed four adirondack chairs:
The color is called apple, but it’s more of a celery green in person. They are $17.98 right now, so for four we spent about $72 dollars. They are very comfy and I have to mention, if anyone out there has a crazy fidgety seven year old who can’t sit still in a chair, try one of these. My son sat crossed legged in the thing for a good 20 minutes without his normal squirming.
The last component to the fire pit, is the fire pit. I am so very happy with this fire pit.
This is a picture of the same firepit I bought (Red Ember Bronze Crossweave Firebowl Firepit) for $169.99. I got mine at Ocean State Job Lot (a local discount store) for $79.99 plus 25% off because I brought my elderly mom (she’s going to love that) so I could get the Senior Citizen discount. So, yes, I got the $170 fire pit for $60. I might be doing a happy dance right now. I literally just figured that out now. The firepit also has a grill thing that you can pop on top and make hot dogs and burgers. Here’s a night time view:
If anyone knows a good tutorial on how to take night time pictures with your DSLR, please share. The second best picture I took came out like this:
In total, this project cost under $200 (we spent $16 on wood for the fire pit, too). Last night we sat outside with the kids and toasted marshmallows. It was fun and satisfying and peaceful. I’m looking forward to a glass of wine and a book by the fire soon, too. $200 for peace and happiness is a very good return on investment.