Stone Veneer Firepit

eemichael83

Finished cutting all of the pieces that I had laid out around the edge. I leveled about 5 of them when I stopped because I realized I may need to make a couple more cuts later when I place the other stones next to them. It started getting late, so I called it a day. Here are the pics of the pieces that were cut:

Overall:


Top views:






Maybe I'll have more progress tomorrow! Oh BTW, I meant to ask what kind of gap I should leave between pieces for mortar?

jomama45

The gaps look great, maybe a bit tight for mortar, but pics can be decieving. We generally shoot for 1/2 - 3/4" for grouted joint. You will have areas that get a little bigger, but that's fine as well IMO.

Just a few ideas. Sorry, I'm not trying to be critical by any means, but my mind is trained to piece stuff like this together when I see it.........

Red lines are things I would cut, just to make the continuing stone placement easier. Yellow lines are merely a little direction on your next stones, but that can vary greatly depending on what you have to work with.

Keep up the good work Michael!

eemichael83

Progress is slooooowww. I also ended up finding a small sand leak after a very hard rain that I had to fix. I assume that after I get all the stone down and mortared up, I wont have those kinds of problems due to the rain not directly hitting the sand and the water mostly staying out of that area.

I managed to snap this pic before the camera fogged completely up and became useless:



Its hard to tell at this point, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to have enough stone to finish the patio and the cap!

cocobolo

Hats off to you eem, that looks great!

gma2rjc

The colors are beautiful and the pieces look great pieced together that way.

Now I'm really excited to see it finished!

eemichael83

Thank you

Thank you too! I'm really liking the colors too after I was able to wash the dirt of with the hose and actually see them

I'm really hoping to make quite a bit of progress this weekend but it is supposed to rain a bit. I figure after I get a pretty large section done, I'll level the pieces and try and pack the sand under them as qood as possible, then mix up some mortar and let that section set up.

cocobolo

It's a shame and all that you seem to be getting so much rain...but don't complain too loudly. We are desperate for some rain here. Latest is that we might get a shower or two in two weeks!

Dinggus

Can I ask where you got the idea on how to build this? It looks awesome, I'd love to have one in the future.

eemichael83

A coworker told me that if I had a firepit, I'd never want a house without one again. So I started to think about how nice it might be to sit around a nice crackling fire on a cool night throughout the spring and fall and it just seemed like a great idea. He also said you can sit around it in the winter with just short sleeves on and still be plenty warm. I also thought it might be cool to use it as a BBQ pit during the summer by using one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...#ht_2143wt_869

Here's a little update. I've been able to work on it a little bit on a couple of different days. Today, there was one piece that I was really struggling to find. I finally found one with a shape that would work well... I marked it, cut it about half way through, started tapping it lightly with the hammer and fractures started appearing everywhere... finally it just exploded into many many pieces. Thats when I quit for the day







These pieces are wet in the pics btw, I took the pics after rinsing all the dust off of them from cutting. Also, I think it will look better and more uniform once they're all leveled and there is mortar between them. I'm still doubting whether or not I have enough stone to complete this never ending project lol

eemichael83

Pulled the plastic off on my lunch break and snapped a couple of pics. The stone is dry in these...







I think I'll probably start working on the cap now so that I can quit fooling with the plastic cover everytime theres a chance of rain. Its going to be hard fitting pieces around the actual pit with that plastic bunched up around it anyway.

Also, the pit is quite a bit shorter now that the ground around it is level lol

cocobolo

You know, for a young feller who was so impatient to get this done at the beginning you are doing one helluva great job!

I imagine by now, that you have a new found appreciation for stonemasons. Nothing is ever quite as easy as it seems.

If you keep this quality of work up in all that you do, you will have a house that you can be truly proud of.

I'm going to wait patiently as you work your way toward the end of this "Not-so-little" project.

Lots of us are watching quietly in the wings, and we are all hoping for your success. So good luck from me!

eemichael83

Wow I really appreciate that. I've put in quite a bit of hard work on it and it makes me happy that others can appreciate the work I've put into it and are enjoying the outcome. It wasn't really that I was impatient, but mostly that I completely underestimated how long something like this would take. My first project for the year was the addition to the deck and that only took 2 weeks which included doing all the landscaping and installing a watertight outlet under the old portion of the deck for the fountain. So I figured the pit and the patio would only take maybe 3-4weeks. I was way off.

"Nothing is ever quite as easy as it seems."- understatement of the year

Hopefully you wont have to be much more patient... I got to work on the cap today and was able to cut up and lay down about 1/3 of it in only 2-2.5 hours. I think a full day (probably sunday) and I'll be able to have it done. I worked until it got dark out so I wasnt able to snap any pics.

cocobolo

You need to watch that working until dark stuff...I get caught doing that all the time.

At least you're smart enough to wait until tomorrow to take the pix! I'm usually too impatient and take them then and there. The flash pix never come out that well.

Like I said...I'll be watching!!!

eemichael83

A little update while I cool off from the crazy heat outside:





I havn't had to cut any of the outside edges yet, only the inside edges... I've been lucky.

cocobolo

No, no, no...that's not luck...that's pure skill.

And so when will the invitations be going out for the inaugural event?