Come on Baby Light My Fire

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.