DIY: How to Make a Backyard Firepit Out of a Salvaged Dryer Drum

My husband and I are fire fans. Fans of fire. Bonfires in particular.

We live on a military base and have a very small fenced in back yard, but we didn't want to have to experience summer here without being able to enjoy evenings outside by a blazing fire. We had been looking for months hoping to find a nice looking, good quality and reasonably priced fire pit, but it seems that all the remotely nice ones were $80 at least, some even up to $200. That just seemed outrageous for me. I had been weekly checking craigslist hoping on would pop up, but while I was waiting I was seeking out alternatives. At first we thought we might cut down a large metal barrel and just use that, but then I stumbled upon a most genius idea (thank you, pinterest): FIRE PITS MADE OUT OF WASHER/DRYER DRUMS!

 

The moment I saw that people were converting the insides of washing machines into bonfire receptacles I knew we had to make one. I was very surprised when I was able to find a drum on Craigslists just a few days later. The man selling it had it listed as a Washer drum, but upon further inspection we have decided it in an industrial/laundry mat sized drum from a dryer. I am not sure how he came upon it, but that is no matter. It had already been removed from the actual dryer and for $25 it was ours! (If you wanted to create something similar I recommend looking for old washers/dryers out to the side of the road, or finding a cheap salvage place. I've heard that the drums are easy enough to remove, but hopefully you get lucky like us and someone does that step for you.).

drum, upside down, before we did anything to it

 

It was a bit of a process start to finish, but we love the way it came out. The way we went about creating it might not be possible to everyone, as we have access to a lot of equipment and tools, due to my husbands job maintaining structures for the Air Force. However, with a little craftiness and know-how, you could easily create something similar on your own. 

 

In summary we-actually he, while I took pictures- took off the...spike...on the back (some part which connected it to the dryer; it was just screwed in) and removed all plastic parts from the inside.

Next, he drilled some extra holes in the bottom and top, just to allow water to drain (all the holes in the sides are part of the drum design and they make for really great air flow!). Then it got trickier: my husband welded three legs with feet on the bottom, punched holes in them, sand blasted them and screwed them onto existing holes in the drum.

You could definitely do without the legs, but we thought it gave it more of a finished look. Another option would have been to leave the spike on the bottom part on and drive it into the ground for stability. But, if you have welding skills, put them to use!

After he had done all the tricky bits at his shop, we brought it home and I painted it with 3 coats of black Rust-Oleum high heat spray paint. That was about $7 at Lowes; it is made for grills and can withstand heat up to 1,200 degrees F. NOTE: ONLY PAINT THE OUTSIDE PARTS ON IN CONTACT WITH THE FIRE! Paint really made it look finished and it so far holds up very well to the high temperatures.

We love how it turned out! We've had several fires and are looking forward to many more with this lil' beauty. We had a lot of fun working on it. Start to finished it took us between 3 and 4 hours, and cost us $32! Function and frugal, not to mention a pretty good conversation starter. We couldn't be happier!

And that's all my phone has to say about that...

 

planted some grass seed in our back yard. it is amazing for the amount it rains out here how dry stuff can get. and how moss can choke out the existence of all things. also, how bird would rather peck at my grass seeds than eat from their feeder.

 

flash back to JoJo circa 2009. I think this was his favorite shirt.

the back says "chain saw brutality, tornado strength"

 Back in the day of hardcore bands, size small, skin tight shirts, long hair and skinny pants.

(good lord...) (and no, those weren't not his sunglasses, thank you Jesus.)

now its my shirt. strangely, it seems to fit pretty well.

 this both fascinates and disturbs me. so I wear it because it is laughable.

 

there isn't much that the kitty boy loves more than popcorn. it is second only to milk.

every night we munch some while we watch TV and Trink begs until we throw him some little kernelless pieces.if we aren't quick enough he tries to steal from us.

We throw it, and he catches them between his front paws.

 It is adorable. So we keep allowing it.

(we don't feed him people food...save for milk, popcorn and pretzels...)

 

what is this weird thing, you ask?

 a washing machine drum. purchased on craigslist for $25. Why? Because my cool welding husband is going to transform it into a super backyard fire pit. quite excited about that project! (note: its upside down in the picture)

 

there are few things more curious and suspicious than feet under the covers. cats are so silly.

 

you know those people on facebook who seem to constantly be getting free samples in the mail? I'm one of them now.

 

my mother in law just had kittens!!! 4 little itty bitty black ones! 

 well, her cat did...obviously. next time we are home visiting we are taking one (or two or all of them, according to JoJo) back home with us. Trink needs a baby sister. Just think, then you can all endure constant pictures of ALL our cats! Yup. We're crazy cat people. Deal with it.

 

Giant garlic clove. Next to an average sized mushroom. This intrigued me for unknown reasons.

 

this weekend we are attending a birthday party for our friend's fabulous baby girl. she is turning one. and i wanted to buy here every outfit in the store, but settled on this one as she like to play in dirt and garden.

 

my cat has an eyebrow nibbling fetish. it is weird. as you can tell, we own Mr. Kitty Personality, over here.

 

Pearls! Real ones!

 Anniversary gift from my love for me to be fancy and fabulous in Hawaii.

According to the anniversary chart thing, your 1st anniversary is paper and your 30th is pearls. I don't understand any of that stuff one bit, but lets just pretend JoJo is prophesying into our marriage with these. Besides...who wants paper?

Unless its plane tickets to Hawaii. Those were good too :P

 

most importantly, this week I finished school and began packing (and forming detailed lists of attractions, activities, stores and restaurants) for OAHU!!! We leave Tuesday. We never had an actual honeymoon, as he deployed shortly after our wedding, so this is our honeymoon and one year anniversary and first vacation all rolled into one. We are excited out of our minds over here. Don't worry, thousands of (quality, not phone) pictures to come!

Getting married is quite the chore...

So, I am getting married in 64 days. No big deal. The reality sure hasn't sunk in yet, although I do have sudden moments of mind blowing realization, but what has sunk in is WEDDINGS ARE A LOT OF WORK!

JoJo and I, no matter the time frame we had to plan, or even if we had a budget of 50 zillion dollars, always wanted a small, family centered, non-traditional outdoorsy wedding. And seeing as I am non-conventional about most aspects of my life, it shouldn't surprise you that I am non-conventional as a bride-to-be either.

When I was 14, I went on a mission trip to Chile. Great trip, had nothing to do with weddings, but had a lot to do with dysfunctional relationships of team members (many long stories, of which details don't matter). Up until that point in my life I had no intention of getting married. Most of the time I planned on living in the woods by myself and being a falconer/ raptor rehabilitator forever. But during that trip I decide that I was going to someday get married and that I was going to do things right. At that point I made all sorts of very serious decisions about how I was going to do things and what I would do in the mean time. That included praying for the guy I would someday marry (funny thing: Within months of all this occurring some 15 year old kid name JoJo randomly came to my church and got saved...fast forward 7 years and we are getting married. God is cool like that.).

Upon getting back from the trip I walked into my church sanctuary, which they had renovated in the time I was gone and put up hideous acoustic panels on the wall. At that point I raised my right hand and swore to honor God, and still get married, but not to get married in that building. I am sticking with that. I love my church, but it isn't lovely in photos. From that point on I began planning the wedding I would someday have with the one and only man that God had created for me. It being outside was of the utmost importance. (I know some Christians strongly believe in getting married in a church, particularly in their own, because they want their wedding to be "in the eyes of God." I agree very much with wanted my wedding to be in the eyes of God and that is crucially important, but I do not believe God's eyes are limited to any particular place. I believe in God's omnipresence. My wedding will certainly be within his reaches!)

So my 64 day away wedding will be taking place on my grandparent's farm. When I was 14, I also thought it might be nice to get married in the rain, but since then I have rethought that and have decided, as much as I love rain, not to subject my friends and family to it on my wedding day. JoJo proposed in the rain. That is good enough for perfect me. So please, pray for nice weather on May 26th (tents as a back up plan, though!). We will be doing the ceremony (with our wonderful youth pastor as the officiant) before our family and friends (we wanted small and then realized we had huge families, so our guest list is at 200!). The ceremony will be followed by a picnic-style reception, also at my grandparent's beautiful property.

Another part of my wedding that was set in stone from age 14 on was a "retina burnin' white wedding dress." There were a couple years were I joked about wearing my friend's red and black gothic tutu (just because I am fond of rebellion), but I always knew my dress would be *WHITE*. JoJo and I joke about people having to wear sunglasses at the wedding. Long story short, I put a lot of effort into earning a white wedding dress. Its needing to be white was a non-negotiable.

And guess what? A couple Saturday's ago my mom and I went second-hand wedding dress shopping (as we are expert thrifters!) for *7 hours* and at our last stop, Savers, we found a BEAUTIFUL dress, very close to my size, in a style that suited me, for $69.99. It was used, but in lovely condition and it was made in the USA (I refused to buy a dress from a big name bridal store because I try to avoid supporting any company that isn't fair trade and uses sweatshops in their product manufacturing.) And $70 beautiful dress? It was WHITE. God is so good.
I wish I could better describe it to you, but you will have to wait until after the wedding for pictures! No dress-info leaks allowed!

This post is getting long and overwhelming, so I will cut myself off now. There will have to be more posts telling of all the thrifting, DIY-ing and preparations that have been going on in planning this wedding.  (*more posts over HERE on my mom's blog) Originally, 3 months seemed like a horridly short amount of time to pull a wedding together, but God, as usual, is being faithful and again and again we are being surprised by His goodness in helping us to make this wedding happen.  I am trying to remain calm and not sweat the small stuff. (will the flower girls shoes, or the sauce we serve on chicken have any long term effect on my marriage? No.) No bridezilla's allowed. Big picture, the wedding doesn't matter. The marriage does.
 Between all the planning and prep, as well as full time school and part time work, I am getting more and more excited. Stay tuned for more updates!

Hello, Hurricane (Irene)

Collection of shots from Hurricane Irene, as promised:

In Summation: Power outages, fallen trees, downed wires, gas outages, leaves, leaves, leaves, and generators, generators, generators.

 

 

Everybody is safe and sound now and our house is just fine (thank God!). I think at this point most of, if not all, of the state has its power restored and crews are hard at work restoring the millions in damages.

Not the best pictures I have ever taken, but I at least sort of documented the chaos that was going on during Hurricane Irene (which by the way was the worst storm in our area within the last 26 years).

*for the more artistic view of the whole scenario, check out my photo blog: Sometimes I Shoot Things.

What really happened last week...

I told you I was going to school. But that was a lie.

Sort of.

I was supposed to begin my college course load on Monday. My family was supposed to be at a Rhode Island beach and I was going to pop back and forth and visit between class times. But that isn't what really happened. Because Saturday destruction came to town. And by Sunday, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene was creating a full blown power outage in most areas of our state.

700,000 homes in our state had no power. We were one of them.

My family was supposed to head out Saturday, but held off on the drive because of the heavy wind and rain. By Sunday we were waking up in a dark house. After some consideration (and a lot of whining and talk of apocalypses from me) my family packed up and went to my grandparents farm. They live an hour away but they had a generator. We stayed with them, in their well lit, complete with running water house from Sunday to Tuesday.

Classes were canceled Monday and Tuesday. My family couldn't go to the beach even if they wanted to because of flooding, loss of power and evacuation of the beach area they had planned to go to.And back at our house we still had no power.

FINALLY by Wednesday they were able to get down to the beach and settle in. The beach house was safe and sound, save for some driftwood in the lawn and sticks in the yard. I was able to go to classes (I was getting antsy!). Power came back on at our house. I drove back and forth from the beach all week going to classes, going to beach, coming back. We had a really nice time. Even with the chaos, it all worked out in the end.

This is the point where you must be thinking that the storm must have taken away my camera, because WHY would I not have photos of this?

Well...Chaos never sleeps, my friends. I returned home to a computer horrifically infected by a rogue antispyware disease. Not sure how it got there, but it is so bad that we don't know what else to do to remove the horrificality from it, so it is going to see a doctor for a little while until it is healed up all nice and proper. Until then I am on my dad's laptop, sans photoshop. I think it will only be a couple days, so be patient with me. I will share my hurricane damage and beach fun shots with you as soon as possible.

Until then... I have a lot of homework to do to recover from those canceled days. Delicious.

Camping at the beach.

Last weekend I joined my aunt, uncle and my two cousins in a tent for some camping. Also along for the adventure were my "other family" (long story short: my mom's best friend married my mom's brother and we've "adopted" all of my aunts family as our own. And I love them). We camped on a site just off of a nearby beach. Good times ensued, including campfires, hammock swings, midnight bike rides on the beach (and being kicked off said beach by authorities), Starbucks trips, ocean kayaking, jumping off of rocky islands, dropping my purple aviators into the briny depths, and creepy old men in speedos.

I didn't take many pictures at the actual beach, as hauling around a D-SLR isn't really beach friendly, but here are some..

Jeep with kayak all ready to go.

My face distorted in jeep window. Interesting.

Literally no words for my love of this wee child.

Hammocks. What pirate doesn't love 'em.

 

The smaller Isabella. So cute.

My cousin let me use his bike for the midnight escapade.

He is younger than me by about nine years, but I had to lower the seat to reach the pedals.

 Sand and sun.

Mmmm. I love the beach. And there is nothing quite like waking up in a tent.
Great way to end my summer. School starts Monday, people.

On philosophy and throw pillows...

"The success and happiness of a person can be measured by the amount of throw pillows they possess."

I'm pretty sure some philosopher type dude said that. Or then again, maybe I just made it up. I can't seem to remember...

But regardless, I have have lots of throw pillows in my life. And I love them. A couch and a bed are not a couch or a bed unless they have like 40 pillows to squish yourself into, and about 19 blankets to snuggle yourself under. Yes. I have an addiction. To pillows and blankets.

And this week in my sewing fury I made more. Yup, I have issues. I know.

 This is my couch. With five really comfy pillows. The striped one was an extra from my bed that fit the color scheme. The two geometric ones are from Ikea. The two in the front I made. The swirly New Grange-looking one (the back is big polka dots!) was a creation for this last week. It is my new favorite!

My bed. 3 regular pillows.Throw pillows: 2 red ones made by me, also the fuzzy 70s looking one. Brown one in back was a vintage purchase, as was the embroidered one in front. That's 5 in total.
And my bed is only a twin size.

But it is a very, very comfy twin.  Thanks to my philosophy on pillows. And yes, I am very happy about it.



ps: LOOK! I used an iron to make sure the fabric for the pillows was all flat. My sister (an iron addict) saw this as a sign of Christs second coming.
For anyone who knows me, you are celebrating this miracle right along with me. For those of you who don't know me: I don't iron. Ever. My wardrobe is iron free, and perhaps wrinkly, but I am happy about that too!