The Pits (Part 1)

This year 2hotty and I are planning to throw an end of the summer shindig for our family, friends, and new neighbors as kind of a big "woot woot" for surviving almost a full year in our new (and first) home!  If you were to ask my 2hotty what some requirements for a summer party would be, I think he would answer with the following: beer, grilled/smoked meats, beer, mosquito repellent, beer, and a big ol' blazing BONFIRE!! Yes he is quite the minimalist when it comes to throwing parties.......me on the other hand I have TEN lists of things I need to buy or do before I throw any party (no joke)!! So one of the firsts on the list is to DIY a big firepit in our back yard before our "end of the summer" party (which by the way may be a themed....more on that in a later post!). 

Here are a couple inspiration pictures I found on Pinterest of some pits I love (ha ha and not the gross, hairy, stinky kinda "pits"!):

SOURCE. CLICK HERE.

SOURCE. CLICK HERE.

 Both look very similar  but each has something different to offer. I think we will do somewhat of a mixture of the two. I'm digging the roundness in shape as shown in the second (right above) picture but would love it using bricks similar to the one in the first picture (I think it will boil down to which material of stone will ultimately be more budget friendly). So I don't know what we'll end up doing (it's kinda up in the air of possibilities) but for now we are using the inspiration pics as our guides.

Here are a few pictures of the dead pine tree my dad chopped down the very next day after Scott and I closed on our house. (Pictures taken from my phone):

Humongous tree.......I know!

    We knew we would be much happier if the tree came down and opened up some of  the view to the golf course, so my dad came over with his chainsaw at 9 am and guaranteed (I must stress this word because he was so adamant) that the tree would be down in 30 minutes or less. Here he is prepping his chainsaw!! I swear he must've been a lumberjack in a former life!:

I do have a video of him actually cutting it down.  It's just a lot of rambling from me about the values of safety precautions.....yada yada yada!!  So in hindsight do NOT try this at home if you are an amateur......I guarantee you, if my dad didn't know what he was doing I would not allow for it to happen (he's cut done MANY trees before so this was not his first "timber" so to speak).  And we would still be looking at a dead Pine in our backyard right about now. I did yell "timber" in the video and that did make my day (oh the small things in life!)  My dad (Frankthetank) would like everyone to know that the dang tree (although giving him a bit of trouble at first) was down in less than thirty minutes. Gotta love that man!

After the tree came down my dad tried chopping as much as he could into smaller pieces to later be used in our pit.  Thanks dad!:

Here is the BEFORE again:

And this is what we were left with last October (2011):

Ahhh.....we are making progress people!

Well some progress because it remained looking like this far into the winter months (thank goodness for snow to help conceal the big eyesore):

(Eyesore in disguise.........the brush pile.....not my 2hotty!) :-)

We finally took the plunge to do something about it in the beginning of May. YAY!!  It's sorta my birthday present.  (I say sorta because I still have a massage and or bracelet that is sorta my present too.  Right hunny?!?!)

Scott and I got to work clearing the area of any brush before recruiting some of our friends to come help with the chopping part. Here is 2hotty accessing the situation (he just had to ride the lawnmower over because you know our house is "soo" far away (sarcasm here).  Boys sure do love their toys!) :

For some (odd) reason my 2hotty thought that we would be able to to burn off most of the brush in this teensy tiny firepit. I laughed. Yup.....laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.  Oh my 2hotty......he sure is a dreamer!  If it wasn't for me running to the house to get a huge box of black garbage bags, he would still be out there (right now) feeding the pit stick by stick!

After a few moments of motivation to actually get started.....we got to work.

Using any tool we can find (at the inlaws house) to get the job done:

Don't let my "divaness" full you.....this girl can get a little dirt under her finger nails to get a job done!! Amen to that!

Thanks to our very awesome besties we managed to get this pile cleaned up in no time!!  Here is "Helper Chris" at work......check out those calf muscles ladies and all the baggage behind him. :-0

After cleaning most of the brush and filling many many garbage bags, it was time to tackle the much dreaded stump:

                                  

 Don't let the size full you it is much bigger than it looks and it's roots lay deep.......really really deep!  In other words......you don't want to mess with this stump!! Just ask these guys:

Here is "Helper Patrick" sharpening his weapon.....aka...the axe!!

So the battle between the "Dreaded Stump" and the "Three Amigos" begins:

I must admit my flannel wearing lumberjack looked pretty darn hot working up a sweat chopping at the stumps roots!

Back to the battle.  Scott tag teams with Patrick to continue the chopping process:

With a quick water break in between:

In the end the stumps roots were just too dang big and the stump was not amoving! We had to give this win to the "Dreaded Stump" but in the end I know we will be victorious.   We will not give up.  We will chop it up! ( Right guys?!?!  Guys?!?!)

Here is the before again:




And here is the after shot.  Ya I know, I was hoping to have nothing but dirt in this after picture but what can I say.  Did you see just how LARGE that tree was?!?! 

We now have a much MUCH cleaner slate to work with. Huge thanks to our helpers, Patrick and Chris, for coming out and helping us (even when I was working you too hard with my supervising duties. Just wanted to let you know Scott did not hand over any divorce papers (yet) and we are doing just fine! lol.) 

Here is whats on the proverbial "TO-DO" list for our DIY fire pit:

1.       Call DIGGERSHOTLINE to have a tech come out and make sure it is safe to dig and chop around the area (because hitting an electrical wire would be bad, really REALLY bad!)

2.       Rake/Clean up the pile of brush. Haul any of it away to the dump.

3.       Remove the stump. (Ugh!)  Or maybe consider building fire ring around it and eventually burning down the stump.

4.       Remove any weeds/roots/grass around the fire pit surround area.

5.       Flatten (and dig a few inches) of the surround area to make it nice and smooth (so the pavers will lay flush with the grass).

6.       Purchase a firepit ring.

7.       Purchase gravel and sand (and any other materials needed) before laying down pavers.

8.       Choose and purchase stone (pavers) material.

9.       Built pit and lay down pavers.

10.    CELEBRATE with friends and family with lots and lots of smores!! Woot Woot!

It's not really an official to-do list but it's something to work off of. We have never built a firepit before (let alone much of anything really) so we are learning as we go. We've enlisted some of our friends to help with the project in the hopes that "many" minds are better than just one (or two in our case!).  I think my dad, FranktheTank, will be paying a visit in round two of the making of a firepit! We've also researched online and watched a few different tutorials.....and as of recently I had checked out a few books from the good ol' library! So keeping my fingers crossed we get this thing done by the end of June (May is coming to an end here and the first few weekends in June are booked with family/friend functions and even a Brad Paisley concert in the mix too (woot woot) so end of June is a fair deadline I'm so sure we can meet (right hunny?!?!))!! Anyone whose ever built a firepit before and would like to chime in.......I would so appreciate any tips and tricks that would help along the way.  That "WOOD" be so helpful!! (har har har....cheese cheese cheese)!

xoxo Joanna D.