We made the decision that we needed to make some adjustments to our backyard. Our backyard is surrounded by trees and quite private so we enjoy spending time in it. We looked through many landscaping magazines, how ever we weren't able to find a designthat we thought would look good at our house. We were not keen on have to maintain a fountain or pond. Not to mention mosquitoes and bugs are a plenty in our area, so we did not want to dig a pond. One weekend we took some time visiting our local home improvement store and began browsing around the garden department. While we were browsing around I noticed that there was a selection of fireplaces for outdoor use including a ring for an outdoor fire pit. We knew we had discovered the right add on for our yard.

We used to do a ton of camping. Now that we've bought a house in a more rural areawe rarely go camping any longer. One of the things that both of us loved to do was to gaze at the campfire and just talk for hours. We both decided that an outdoor fire pit would re-create those old camping evenings in our own backyard. We have access to firewood from the huge woods on the edge of our property, so spending money for fire wood wouldn't be required.

Multiple options for designs were available at the home improvement store to choose from. There was an outdoor fire pit twhich offered the ability to bbq with the grill on top. We had recently purchased a gas grill so the fire pit frill option wasn't a need for us. We just wanted to keep it simple. The fire ring we purchased was a large metal one along with some fireproof bricks. our backyard area has a small depression close to the wooded area. We figured this would be a wonderful place to build up our outdoor fire pit. The firebricks were positioned in a sqaure shape around the lowered area. We then placed the metal fire ring on top of it. By placing the ring on the bricks we were protecting from grass fires and also makes the outdoor fire pit easy to mow around. We also gota couple of park benches to place on both sides of the campfire.

We spend a lot of time around the outdoor fire pit. Something interesting is that we assumed the area would offer a place for us to spend time talking with each other. There is a great deal of talkingthat happens around the fire pit, however most of it is with the neighbors. It's just something about the scent of a wood fire that lures folks into our yard from theirs to sit around the fire. We're still very happy that we added the outdoor fire pit beacuse not only has it added a lot to our yard design, but it's also introduced us to our neighbors.