More Creativity! Building a Firepit with Free Leftover Bricks!

I received a text from my brother last week asking if I could build another firepit like my sister's with the leftover bricks.  Well, not really...the retaining wall bricks were mostly gone.  I just didn't have enough left to build another one.

But all was not lost.  I had some 200 bricks and stones to use for SOMETHING!!!

He later sent me a picture of an inground firepit and asked if we could build something like that.  We couldn't build what they had, but we could sure build something!  So my response?  "A little creativity (and using what you have) goes a long way."  I told him we should knock it out Monday morning.

Well, Monday morning was here!  So we loaded up some bricks and headed down to the horse ranch.  We got to work right away.

The fire ring as found this morning...

Just an open grassy area with a burn pile.

We dug a hole through very rocky dirt until we were happy with the depth and size.

The dirt was soooooo rocky!  Our firepit hole.

We then installed a brick base so as to prevent the bricks from shifting once we built the walls.  It was a little bit of an art getting the bottom level while having our eyeballs trick us on the sloping top (Jobu made me put a level in there more times than I care to admit!), but we got it where we wanted it.  A little brick pattern later, and it was time for the walls!

The base is complete!

It went up very easily.  Set the bricks around the edge, fill in the backs and cracks with good dirt, then repeat!  We ended up building a wall five bricks high.  It was looking sharp!

The last row of brick wall we installed.  Five bricks deep.

Once at ground-level, though, we had a bit of a problem.  No matter how we placed the remaining bricks, we just couldn't get a pattern or look we liked.  There were either too many gaps in the bricks, or it just didn't look right.  Well, finally, we did something we both liked...a spiral pattern of sideways bricks!  It looked good.

After MUCH trial and error, we found a look we liked!

We then took our wheelbarrel full of dirt and built up the ground around the pit.

The firepit all filled in!

And in just a few hours, we had a great-looking inground firepit!  We cleaned up the bricks and admired our work.  Not bad for worthless brick that was just sitting on a basketball court three hours earlier.  :)

The new in-ground firepit!

Ready for its first fire!

Looks beautiful!