We love campfires, s’mores, stories, and sharing moments with our friends and littles! For years, we had great moments around our portable fire pit. After a fun evening of fun with friends, good food and watching the kids roast marshmallows and eat more chocolate than mallow, we sat watching the embers fade in our slightly rusted fire pit. We both agreed it was time for an upgrade and another design build project.
The Replace our Sad Little Rusted Fire Pit Concept Plan
This plan was not created using Minecraft. Yet, this was it, our concept design. From this we would see vision transform to hardscape. The click-click-click anticipation of the roller coaster was about to be released and dirt and rocks would start flying. It would be a smooth and beautiful thing this transformation – of course, we knew better. After as many projects as we’ve been through we knew the concept was at best a tentative Guide for the journey whom may not even show up.
The Journey Begins!
Day 01. Lay it out
With the sad little rusted fire pit as a half-arse guide for how much bigger and grander the new fire pit would be, we marked out the general road map of where we were heading. Although, Day 1 is much more about playing with heavy-ish equipment. The Bobcat excavator and skid steer showed up – fun!
Day 02. Excavator Fun
The Bobcat excavator made short work of that hill and the tree stump. Some of those “regional” rocks were sure challenging – some of the larger ones were over 1,000 pounds. Luckily, no surprises – none of the rocks were tips of icebergs. A wee lesson learned, the mini-excavator will crack the corner off your concrete patio even if it’s 4 inches thick.
Day 03. Skid Steer and Tamping Fun
The Skid steer with a fork lift attachment made short work of bringing the numerous pallets of bricks into the back yard. We are also lucky enough to have ample back yard access so larger “mini” equipment can get into our backyard.
Day 04. First Layer Perfection
The most important row is arguably the first row when you’re setting you retaining wall. Make sure to adequately tamp (slam it down) the base mix and to firm set your brick into place with help from a rubber mallet. You are likely going to need to make some cuts. While requiring slightly more skill, a gas powered concrete saw with a new blade will make fantastic cuts. You might need some practice – having a scorer really helps.
Day 05. Bricks, Drainage, and More Bricks
Progress was a little slower as the landscape fabric and some of the behind the wall drainage was put in. There was some progress on brick placing.
There is a lot more bricks stacked there then we’ll need — there was a good reason for this — Scope Creep!
Day 06. More Layers and Scope Creep
We didn’t originally plan on extending our wall all the way to the end of the side yard. But we did! When a project gets larger either by unintended discoveries or you wanting to do more – that’s scope creep. When the edge of the fire pit bench was finished, it just seemed like a good idea to go all the way down.
This was also the day we realized the originally planned 12-foot seating bench was not going to be enough – time to widen.
Day 07. Some Important Lessons Learned
Looks like yesterday, but the wall is finished and the bench is on it’s way. We were trying to put some thought into what caps we would use – originally considering a coping bullnose.
It was also at this point in the project we learned some very important lessons to consider when building retaining walls.
Day 08. Let there be a Fire Pit
It’s really starting to take shape! Fire pit built, even test fit a log.
Day 09. Capstones and Lights
We finnally settled on the Belgard Melville capstone in Rio to match the Belgard Weston in Rio of the wall. Although the width is unfortunate and required a long day of trimming the top caps.
Day 10. Let there be Lights
The goal for today was to get some temporary lights up and see what it looked like at night. It was a wee bit much to have 3 across the back and only 18 feet of wall space.
Day 11-ish. Capstones
If there would have been Melville capstones available in charcoal, then we would have been able to install them. However, 3 weeks later supply caught up with demand. We also placed a super fine granite stone to finish off the area. We are super happy with the way this project turned out. I’ll see if there’s settling over the wet season and come back next spring and spend some more time leveling the capstones.
Let us know how your backyard project goes or if you need any encouragement!
