DIY Outdoor Fire Pit

Step 1: First and foremost. This is by far the most important step. Get yourself one of these.

This hardworking, strong, determined husband is crucial if you'd like to make your own outdoor fire pit. Can't be done without him. Period.

Step 2: Drive 40 minutes out of town to the Cactus Quarry, handpick your favorite boulders, come back, drop them off in a heaping pile, drive back to the quarry and back with more rocks. You'll need about 3.5-4 tons of boulders for this look. This requires about 4 trips out to the quarry. Once you get all the rocks, start stacking them in a horseshoe shape that has been previously dug and trenched for proper drainage. Note: put the flattest, largest rocks on the BOTTOM! Keep stacking the rocks until the wall reaches about 3 feet tall. Anything taller requires a permit!

Step 3: While stacking the rocks, the backside of the wall needs landscaping fabric tucked into it. This step is crucial if you don't want your wall tumbling over from dirt erosion. This fabric keeps the dirt from seeping into all the cracks and pushing the rocks out of place. This step is a MUST!

Step 4: Once the wall is in place, you'll need to build the back side up with dirt. We ordered 14 yards of topsoil and had it all delivered in one dump truck load. Unfortunately, the dump truck could only dump it in one spot. The dirt will need to be dispersed throughout the whole back side of the wall, tampering and watering the dirt into place. Pack it in hard so there won't be any shifting once you start watering.

Step 5: These pictures make it look like a really quick, easy, no sweat project. Don't let these pictures fool you! This was hard to do!! Once all the dirt is dispersed evenly along the backside - we went for the tapered look - you're ready to plant some foliage. We wanted some Evergreens.

Step 6: Once all your plants and trees are in place, put down weedblock! The goat heads in this area are absolutely atrocious. Talk about weeds to torment man! These are the most tormenting weeds EVER! And they spread like wildfire. Weedblock is a MUST!

Step 7: Once the weedblock is all in place, top with landscaping rock. We went with the same rock as the wall but crushed into smaller pieces. Disperse evenly all along the mound.

Step 8: The floor of the firepit. We looked into pavers since that was the look we wanted but found it to be more cost effective if we (Jeff) made our own. He bought the mold that you pour concrete into and it sets making it look like pavers that were put down individually. One mold makes about 10 pavers and you flip the mold to match up next to the one you just did. Once again, sounds easy but this was an extremely time consuming project. When the floor space is covered with the pavers, and once dry, fill the cracks with mortar sand. Just sweep over the tops of the pavers and the sand falls into the cracks. We actually built the firepit right into the ground with an old, semi truck wheel well (free at Les Schwab) that you can't see in this picture so you could actually have a fire right in the ground there. The firepit you see is sitting right on top of the hole.

Step 9: Voila! Invite your friends over and enjoy some S'mores and late night chats right in the comfort of your own backyard.

Next week: DIY Square Foot Gardening in Raised Beds!