Paver pad for my firepit

[phishfood]

I have a firepit. I built it out of slate that my brother gave to me when I visited him in North Carolina. We have made a lot of memories around this firepit, but it sure could use some help.

Here is a picture of it's current state.

 

[phishfood]

I was given a decent quantity of pavers for helping someone I know move. These pavers are 24"x24" plain white and 16"x16" red with patterns cast in.

I have been thinking about building a pad out of them with the firepit as the centerpiece. So, over the past couple of evenings, I have gotten a start.

Here is a picture of the area pre-construction.

 

[phishfood]

There were some depressions that my dogs had dug in years past, and some pretty hefty roots as well.

This took care of all of the above:

 

[phishfood]

I ran the rototiller through the area several times, removing the roots and such each time.


Here is a picture after that, as Florida Sugar Sand is a thing of beauty.

 

[phishfood]

And NO, I did not take out our phone line in the process. At least that is what I am telling my wife.

After all, we were about to get the line cut off anyway, so why should I take the heat?

 

[phishfood]

Then I used a plate compactor to pack the dirt down nice and tight. We (finally) got some rain last night, and that helped as well.

 

[phishfood]

After several trips back and forth with the compactor, I used a rotary laser and target to level the area. Then I layed out the corners of the pad, squaring them using the 1.414 multiplier. Attached to batter boards, stringlines were pulled over the corner pins, so that I would have a straight reference line to lay the outer pavers from.

Here is a picture of the pad all leveled, stringlines up, and pavers moved to the edge, ready to be placed.

 

[LiQuId]

You do nicer and more quality work than many landscaping companys i've seen.

 

[phishfood]

Overkill because I don't know what I am doing.

 

[phishfood]

First, I must apologize for how dark the previous pictures are. I had forgotten that I had adjusted the brightness on my phone camera down when I was trying to take a picture awhile back.

Anyway, I got started laying the pavers last night, and finished this morning. At least with the basic part of the pad design.

 

[phishfood]

I knew before I started that I would not be satisfied with just plain white. So I came up with an idea to use the red pavers that I had to add pizzazz.

Here is one of the corners with chalklines popped, ready for a skilsaw with diamond blade.

 

[phishfood]

I cut in on a 45 degree angle from each corner, 15 3/4" wide, so as to set the red 16" pavers in.

Here is a shot of one of the corners.

 

[phishfood]

Another shot of the entire pad after I put the red pavers in.

 

[phishfood]

And another after I moved the slate rock firepit into the center.

 

[phishfood]

And a closeup of the firepit.

 

[phishfood]

And next weekend I have to do a walkway to connect it to the pavers outside of our door, and concrete in the edges of all of the pavers.

No rest for the wicked.

 

[Mr_David]

get an Iron movable pit so you won't destroy that nice pad you made.
Looks awesome

 

[phishfood]

Yeah, but metal doesn't look quite like stone.

Anyway, many of these pavers came from a firepit pad. The paver directly under the fire was cracked pretty bad, but the rest were OK. And when one or two of the pavers underneath my fire do break, we won't see them anyway. I put some thought into doing a recessed dirt bottomed pit in the center, but the cracked ones in my friends's pad didn't cause him problems, so I decided to leave well enough alone.

 

[Chris]

That looks great, who cares if they crack more underneath it will add character.

Also way overkill for a pad but you will also likely never have an issue with it.