apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I love this, and I'm already trying to figure out how I can recreate something like the first picture in my back yard.

I love the sunken fire pit, although I would have to create a sturdy cover to keep the rain from filling it up with water.

Pondering the possibilities...

I've been trying to figure out how to do a backyard firepit on the cheap, but asinner's comment got me thinking. What is a good option to keep out the rain? And yeah, I LOVE that top pic.

While I have absolutely no place to put such furniture, I find this to be pretty much awesome and I love it.

My sis & her dh have a great fire pit on their 11 acre DIY spread in Vermont, and they're out around it all year long -- love it! It's sunken maybe 8" and the area around it is ground-set field stone, right up to the lip. The firepit in the picture looks nice, but with a little use the grass would get all trampled & muddy -- stone or gravel is a must, also a lot safer (imagine a hot summer night with that field on fire!).

The great thing about a sunken firepit is in cold weather, the heat warms your feet while standing around it. To keep it from getting mucky, dig it deeper and then half fill with sand. Don't use river rocks or pebbles or anything porous, because if there's moisture in the stone it will explore when heated.

And instead of pillows, try closed cell foam pads. They're waterproof, and good insulation when you're sitting on stone. Because who's really gonna schlep all those pillows all the way back & forth from that house anyway?

Oh, right -- that's what the servants do....

asinner and serao...

For a backyard fire pit, dig a square or round pit, maybe a foot or more deep, surround it with poured cement or cement blocks, (recessed into the ground), and then add sand. The rain wont fill the fire pit up, it will run through.

Anthropologie catalogs = my design crack.

I've seen some awesome fire pits made out of random salvaged steel parts. If you have a scrap yard anywhere around you, check it out and see if you can get something.