Posted: 5/3/2011 6:39:35 PM EDT
This was originally a 10' x 11' slab done by the builder, it is now a bit over 15' x 18'. I did some work to my patio recently and laid slate tile. I still may add some enhancer to the stone to darken it up. But overall I like the way it turned out.
Later in the year I am thinking of dumping the fire pit and building a masonry fire pit/place. If anyone knows of some online plans or ideas, let me know! I would still like some sort of permanent or fixed overhead cover/shade. |
| The slate was a lot more trouble than I imagined; none of the tiles were the same dimensions or proper thickness! It was more difficult to lay it in a pattern because of this, much more trouble than the ceramic tile I did inside. I guess that is the difference between tiles cut in Italy and those in India! |
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The slate was a lot more trouble than I imagined; none of the tiles were the same dimensions or proper thickness! It was more difficult to lay it in a pattern because of this, much more trouble than the ceramic tile I did inside. I guess that is the difference between tiles cut in Italy and those in India! Looks good! I know what you mean about slate. It's a pain in the ass to work with. Looks good though!! |
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i like the lego block concrete fireplace kits |
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The slate was a lot more trouble than I imagined; none of the tiles were the same dimensions or proper thickness! It was more difficult to lay it in a pattern because of this, much more trouble than the ceramic tile I did inside. I guess that is the difference between tiles cut in Italy and those in India! Looks good! I know what you mean about slate. It's a pain in the ass to work with. Looks good though!! I did our bathrooms, mud room, knee-walls, and sinks in slate. Nothing was the same size. Thankfully natural stone is forgiving when it comes to slight mismatches on the alignment! That's why I was thinking about doing the back patio in slate as well, thought it would bring the house together nice. |
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Later in the year I am thinking of dumping the fire pit and building a masonry fire pit/place. If anyone knows of some online plans or ideas, let me know! i like walls you can sit on, makes for a nice setting and you don't always need to have chairs out. maybe you get some ideas below... we purchased this house about two years ago and have been fixing things up as we go. that said, if there is something historic or unique ihave a hard time just trashing it. i'd rather figure out a way to make it "work", but keep the history there. the outdoor fireplace itself was built around 1940 or so, about 10 years after the house was built. someone did put some care into it as the firebox was lined with proper firebrick, not just red brick. however, years of neglect, freezing weather, encroaching soil, and so on made it a sorry sight. water had gotten in some of the mortar joints and there were many loose firebricks. basically, it was a broken down, unusable outdoor fireplace which had 4 inches of soil in the firebox and weeds growing in it. for 2 seasons i mowed around the old firepit with my BX1860, and on alternate mowings i wavered between attaching the FEL and dismantling it "with prejudice" versus figuring out how i could "fix" it. one day I came back inside and announced to my wife that i would fix it by building a "firepit" –– taking advantage of the now appreciable slope that was surrounding it (70 years of soil migration). she yawned. i took up the challenge. here it is in the distance the day we moved in (the straw is from a septic system that was just installed): 
late last fall i started on the project by scalloping out an area in front of it, making an apron for the fireplace: 
here is a close up showing the dilapidated condition: 
i don't have a BH and i didn't want to rent a Mini-Ex for this, so mostly i "drove in" from the shallow end with the BX's FEL: 
i got a couple of pallets of fieldstone to make the walls, and moved them to the jobsite with the FEL and ballast box. this was not really as fun as it sounds. 
as a went along i then discovered that at one point in time there must have been a red brick patio out in front of the fireplace. thereafter i dug up/out about 87,000 brick chunks. it sucked. 
after doing some math i decided on a level for the patio surface, and dug out to that depth: 
there was a lot of elbow grease involved: 
my wife congratulated me on making a fine hole in the backyard, and reminded me that it would be thanksgiving in a couple of weeks and i needed to get a move on before the weather turned cold: 
this basically translates to, "you made a mess, when are you cleaning it up?": 
the PA bluestone arrived but i have no way of getting a 2200 pound pallet off the truck, and i certainly don't want to do it by hand, but the truck dumps –– it's just physics –– so there you go: 
each 3' x 2' x 1.5" thk piece of bluestone weighs about 75 pounds: 
the little BX is one tough customer, she didn't complain even once: 
now fall was in full swing and with so many other things going on i was spending just an hour each night after work on the firepit. visions of restarting the unfinished project in the spring were in the back of my head: 
i enlisted some support from a friend of mine who is a mason. while i was at work one day he poured the underlay slab for the patio surface, and the next day put the PA bluestone down. 
the job of stacking the fieldstone on the walls was split between me and one of his helpers, it takes longer than you would think to get it right. 
in the meantime my mason friend used this "cake decoration" tool thingy to regrout the stove joints in an artistic way, 
the end result actually looked really cool and gave it a nice new look, 
this picture was taken the day before thanksgiving, 
but over the next week it finally came all together, 
the final result was super, 
and has turned out to be a great place to have a beer with friends, 
as spring warms up it will be a great place to eat outside –– close enough to the house but just the right distance away, 
i have to take a recent picture but a couple of weeks ago i used a weak Muriatic acid solution to clean years of weather and grime from the old fireplace, and it is truly beautiful now. the vivid colors of those old stones are still there. –––– epilogue: in the end i'm really happy not to have stuck the BX's FEL into the side of the fireplace, reducing it to rubble. the old fireplace represents something we "saved", and that's a good feeling to me. the newly built firepit is both functional and a nice detail to the yard. |
even in a smaller space, a little "3d landscaping" with stone changes the character quite a bit. here is the "almost finished" backyard project of a friend of mine, who lives in an old section of town (circa 1800's houses) which are abutted up back to back/side to side. one wall has a built in gas fireplace to sit around on chilly nights.
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At least you had a tractor. I've been too cheap to rent a bobcat because I don't want to spend the 200-300 dollars per 8 hour a day going rate for the things.
So far in the past year I have transformed part of the yard from the barren weeds/dog turds that covered the yard when I bought it. dug out the 20x20 area for my patio, built the pergola after sinking the steel in concrete footings(10x12 on center, 17ft by 4x10 main beams, 14ft 4x6 cross beams) a 25 ft x 15 ft x 22 inch deep pond, moved 40 wheel barrels of dirt(7 cu yards) that I had delivered, and poured roughly 20 80 pound bags of cement/mortar while making my water feature which is only about 1/6 of the way done. I'm hoping to flow about 2000 gallons per hour of water split between two different streams/waterfalls before they meet up together at the main 1500-1800 gallon pond. With luck the first side will be done in about 4 weeks so I can finally turn on the pump.. Upper ponds are two 50 gallon, one 90 gallon, and one 250 gallon. Streams will begin at the 50s and work their way through the 90 and 250 where I have plants and fish to help filter out debris The other side will wait till the end of summer as things cool off, no desire to even work in the evening at the tail end of a 100+ degree day. Pond currently has mosquito fish, red wag platies, silver mollies, couple fancy guppies, a bunch of orange feeder minnows, and finally two small green Terrors which will keep the babies in check. Oh, and then there's the 35 bull frog tad poles I introduced a month ago, they should be crawling out of the primordial ooze in another month or so given the growth rate of the one I had thrown in my aquarium, in a month he developed full on rear legs he was using to swim while beginning to grow arm buds. Eventually I'm going to get the fire pit going as well. I want to do something about 4 feet wide, 6 feet long, and maybe 3-4 feet tall. I want to have one side open for putting wood in from the side but the bottom of the pit I want to have about 8-12 inches off the ground so it's more like a fire place. If I can figure out a way to make it work I'd like to put a santa maria style rising grill surface on it that is big enough to get 2-3 butterflied chickens, maybe 2-3 racks of beef ribs, and still have room to cook burgers. So much more work to do, I'm only using roughly 1/4 of my hard for this. I'm on a 1/4 acre corner lot. Trees in the photos are all fruit trees, 7 cherry, 2 nectarine, 2 pomagranite, 1 plum, 1 orange, 1 peach. Number one bitch? TRYING TO KILL OFF BERMUDA GRASS! I HATE THE CRAP! IT SUCKS. Need it gone from everything I'm growing but I've seen roots down as far as 18 inches when I was digging the pond. 
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