For several years now I’ve been meaning to do something with the large pile of flagstone that’s been sitting out back, but never really made the effort to get something moving and in place. However, now with the advent of summertime and the presence of some cheap and willing labor (locationally-captive Aussie brother-in-law Sam), I decided it was high time to replace my old and worn wrought-iron fire-containment device with something a bit more robust and built out of good old-fashioned ROCK. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to play with the Handyman’s Playdough — CONCRETE!

To start, I used a rope attached by a slip knot to a pole to mark an inner circle; this would be the size of the inside of the pit where the fire would burn. It would then be ringed by a flagstone wall to enclose it. For the time being, I shoved a bunch of stakes (actually pieces of 1/2″ CPVC water piping I had spare) into the ground around the perimeter of the pit so I would know where my edges were. Then Sam and I manned some shovels and cleared out the sod in a ring around it approximately a foot and a half wide.

Here is Sam, proud of his digging ability (which was pretty darn good). You can see that the sod has been removed and the underlying soil leveled with some raking and hoeing.

Here is some of the flagstone that we used, but in reality we went through probably 4 times this amount.

The pile of sod after we cleared out the flange of the fire pit. At first, I was going to use it to fill in places around the lawn that were a bit…unwell…but I think the bulk will make it into the compost pile to provide inspiration to the rotting process.

Here we have fit all the flange stone into the ground ontop of a sand base to try to prevent drainage and flexing issues. Shortly after this we mixed up standard pre-mix mortar concerte mix to a slightly-more-than-sloppy consistency and used it to fill in all the spaces between the rock. The application of some fingers and shaping and it came out pretty well.

With the flange stones finished and cemented in place, we cleared out the middle of the pit to even it out and make it smooth.

We started putting stones around the inner pit circle by mortaring them to the inner part of the flange, which took a holy-hell-awful lot of mortar to get things evened out.

Sam Jacobs: He will, He will, ROCK YOU.

Three layers done! As we went, we’d leave various gaps in the wall for ventilation to the fire (air holes, that is). This actually turned out to be a really good design decision, as they look completely natural (like a natural crevice) and they helped us make some fitting decisions, where we couldn’t get some stones to line up quite right — more than once we stepped back and went, “Ok — air hole!” You can see one such hole underneath the large flat stone in the foreground.

We were fairly sloppy with the mortar as we went (you can see that evidence on this picture), but we cleaned up after we got done each day. You can also see some of the rock that we cut (far side, bright, straight line on the inner rock face) with a masonary blade on the circular saw. Usually we could just score it halfway through and then use a hammer and cold chisel to make it break along the line. This helped tremendously as we were able to adjust some stones that would have otherwise been unusable, and it’s a lot more accurate than just whacking them with a hammer and hoping for a good break.

After five layers, we had an inspector show up to check out the project. He was a pretty critical little guy, checking out the construction, the mortar, and whether it was sturdy, but in the end he gave it his seal of approval. (My son, Keston.)

Six layers of rock later, we have a finished product! It’s about a foot and a half high, give or take, and about 4.5 – 5 feet across. As it turns out from our testing last night by starting a big-ass fire in it, it’s the perfect size.

The bottom of the actual fire pit itself we lined with small chunks of broken flagstone, all of a similar thickness and shape. The idea was to keep it open so rainwater would drain away quickly and not create a “bowl” where the water would collect, but still give a firmer surface than just dirt on which to build a fire. So far, I’m terribly pleased with how this both looks and performs with a fire.

FIRE! Heh-heh…FIRE! It was, if I can use the term, a raging success.

With a bit of camera magic (slowing down the shutter speed), you can see the placement of the ring in the backyard and how it looks to human eyes that are adjusted. Fits in perfectly.

One of the ventilation holes that we purposely (or creatively) built into the wall with some glowing embers behind.

Look at those coals! Lovely, and perfect for a set of s’mores, which we gave a shot last evening and declared a perfect victory.

So that’s our new fire pit — if you’re ever in the area, you’ll have to come by and sit a spell! A HUGE thanks to the awesome and talented Sam for all his help!

A new gas range, that is!   Our old one, after 30 years of service, finally blew the bottom baking coil the other night when my wife was trying to bake a scrumptious white pizza she made.   After an hour the temp was still at 225 F, so we knew it wasn’t going to be helping us out anymore.

While, yes, we could have repaired that coil (new ones are about $65 + the time to install it), we knew we’d need a new range sooner than later and it seemed to be rather prophetic, so we took the hint, went to Menards, and got a Whirlpool model WFG361LV in “silver” which means half silver, half black.

AND IT’S GAS!    Glory and trumpets!    I’ve lusted after gas stoves ever since I found out how nice they are to cook with vs. electric and have always said some day I’d get one.    Despite my wife’s trepidations about learning to cook on a gas appliance, I encouraged her and finally won her heart in the matter and we got the shiny beast with the help of my father and hooked her up 2 nights ago.

And boy, what a difference!    Like I had mentioned to Yolanda, anything newer than 30 years old would be an improvement, but this is a huge difference.   Even, gentle cooking, no harsh or weird temperatures, and the instant-on, instant-off wonders of gas.    I haven’t really done much cooking with it yet, but the pizzas tonight turned out wonderfully, and that’s a good starter.

Hopefully the next time we replace a major appliance it will be because we’ve decided to do so versus being forced, but in this case, I think it’s turned out to be a win-win all around.

We rarely think about such mundane fixtures in our homes such as toilets, but on occasion they remind us just how important they are — or how nasty they can be.   It was such a situation that we found ourselves in this past weekend when our upstairs butt-throne decided to leak and cause it to piss down rain into our kitchen, soaking a cupboard full of dishes, a rack of spices, and leaving many copious puddles on the countertops.    Luckily (if you can call it that), the water was from the tank, not the bowl, so at least it wasn’t a shower of sewage.

Nonetheless, it was incredibly unpleasant to clean up.   Many brave towels gave their lives in the war.   The upstairs toilet had been acting up for a long time, having a disturbing trend of sinking slowly into the floor and resembling the leaning tower of Pisa minus the gawking tourists.   We knew the time was coming quickly when we would have to do something about it (or deal with shooting columns of liquipoop), but this sealed the deal — we had to do something.  The house had a royal flush and we were holding a pair of nines.   Time to be handy.

So, at 5:30pm on Friday night I dug into the task of removing the offending appliance and seeing what I was up against.   Removing the toilet presented a huge amount of rotted floor below it, which explained the problem of the leaning latrine, but didn’t exactly help my confidence in solving the problem.

To my rescue came my father, Wayne, who graciously dropped whatever he was going to do that evening and came over with his tools to help me figure out the best way to redo the flooring since it had rotten out all around the base of the toilet.   After a few hours of fiddling and fitting, we had a new floor in place.     At 8:30pm we took off for Mason City and Menards and, after looking at all the options and pricing privies that were out-of-stock (grrr…), we settled on an Eljer Titan elongated. It has a 10+ rating on flushability (one-flush solves all), 1.6 gallons per flush (eco-friendly), a 16 1/8″ seat height (ADA-approved), and a 3″ flush valve so things move quickly. It was pricey, but our best option for long-term relaxing and enjoyment.

Another couple of hours and I had it installed and working by 12:45am.     It’s a huge, beautiful thing compared to the old piece of junk.   The flushing sequence is quick and fast — you press the lever and there’s a Whooosh–GLUGUGUG! and that’s it.   Done.   Everything you can think to deposit in that bowl gets whisked away to the great sewer in the sky in about a second.   It is very impressive, and I don’t get a kick out of a bog very often.

Below you can see the pictures of our adventure.     And yes, I really did throw the old toilet out of the 2nd-story window.   It was damned fun and highly recommended entertainment.