We had a large, unused area at the back of our garden where the previous house owners just dumped gravel to stop weed coming through. This space was uneven and had a few old tree trunks.
My husband Steve always wanted an open fire area where you can sit around with friends, enjoy the evenings and maybe use it for cooking too! I dreamt of a beautiful raised decking area where you can relax anytime and invite your guests for a BBQ. We had to do a lot of planning to make the most of the area, in order to transform it to the usable space we always wanted.
We did all the work ourselves saving some money and learned as we went (like the spirit level must be your best friend!). The next few weeks I will be bringing you updates from this garden project in four stages:
- Build Your Own Open Fire Pit
- Decking Benches made from Pallets
- Build your own Garden Decking Area
- Easy DIY Garden Raised Beds Build from Pallets and Decking Wood
- Tips to decorate Garden Seating Area and Fences
Let’s start with the first – easy part:
1. Build Your Own Open Fire Pit
Difficulty: EASY
BEFORE
AFTER
Tools required*: shovel, fork, rake tape measure, concrete trowel
Shopping list:
- Concrete
- Bucket
- Gloves
- Square concrete slab
- Concrete blocks
- Black weed-proof sheet
Project cost: around £20
*excluding tools
To do list:
- Remove all gravel and earth using shovel.
- Level the ground with a rake.
- Dig a hole for the fire pit (as wide as you want it to be).
- Insert a large slab at the bottom and concrete blocks all around the edges to create a nice circle.
- Add a mix of concrete and a full hand of gravel to each corner hole to secure them.
- Once the cement is set level the area and cover it with a black weed-proof sheet.
- Move the gravel back and spread it evenly.
FINISHED OPEN FIRE PROJECT
Tip: We saved money by reusing existing gravel. It looks good and it is a great fire safety protection. The concrete slab and blocks for the fire pit were also re-used from previous garden projects. If you haven’t got any you can pick them up cheaply locally from Ebay or a Facebook community page.