DIY Fire Pit Area

Fire pit’s are all the rage this summer and building your own DIY Fire Pit Area is an added bonus! Now the next question is how to build a DIY Fire Pit area in an affordable way?

Cost of DIY Fire Pit Area:

Concerned about the cost of a DIY fire pit area – don’t be?  There are options –  here’s how I built my fire pit using re-purposed materials and $20. When I bought my house, the previous homeowner had created a flower garden out of cinder blocks behind the house. They had also created a small planter in the middle of the back yard using landscaping blocks. When I moved in I removed all blocks from both and removed one of the planters. Of course I didn’t want to throw away the old blocks so I stacked them beside the house and they sat there for years. When I decided I wanted a fire pit, I knew I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to purchase one. I also wanted a larger outdoor fire pit area (we have large parties in the summer and love sitting by the fire). So I surveyed the materials that I had on hand. This is what I decided on, Cinder blocks for the foundation, cement landscape edging for the walls, landscape blocks for the corners and old stamped bricks to finish it off. All the materials were either with the house when I bought it or ones that I had previously purchased and were no longer using.

How to Create the Fire Pit:

1.)    I began by digging a small trench for the cinder blocks to sit in and leveled/squared them off.

2.)    I used the cement landscape edging to create the walls, using landscape adhesive to hold them in place. You can find it at your local home improvement store.

3.)    I used the landscape blocks for the corners.

4.)    I then used cement blocks as a wall cap.

5.)    Last I mixed a bucket of cement to ensure the walls and corners were all connected and stable.

I completed the fire pit area with some red stamped bricks that I had laying in the backyard. They served as a border to hide the tops of the cinder blocks. In the end I bought 3 tubes of landscape adhesive and one bag of cement (of which I only used a small amount of). Total money spent was less than $20! This project took me about four hours to complete, including around an hour of cleaning my old moss covered blocks.

Have you built something with re-purposed materials? What was it?

The next step in creating this amazing area is to enjoy your summer and serve up some cold drinks.

What are your thoughts on creating a Fire Pit Area? Is this something you have done or plan on doing?