DIY Fire Pit Table Top

This is my firepit.

 Which my kids seem to think should double as a sand box (even though we built them a perfectly nice sandbox down by the water). It drives me nuts, because as you can imagine sooty ashes, kids and my white couches just don’t mix.

 So, meet my brand new table! It totally makes my fire pit a multi-tasking super hero – perfect snack table by day (banishing naughty children who like to be covered in soot) awesome fire pit by night (covering previously mentioned children in marshmallow goo instead).

Need your very own DIY Fire Pit Table Top? You can totally make this too! So here’s the scoop, this month Ace Hardware is celebrating their 90^th Anniversary, fun right? To celebrate they challenged us Ace Bloggers to complete a project using only $90. My table came in right at $87.98, boom!

 I saw a fire pit table top at a home and garden show and have been wanting one ever since. As usual the friendly people at Ace Hardware were amazing in helping me figure things out, because being the professional blogger person (insert sarcasm here) I am, I walked in there with a really fancy crayon drawing of what I wanted to make, but I wasn’t really too sure how to make it.

They were up to the task, quickly walking me around the store showing me the various brackets and wood that might work for me. We were all brainstorming and finally came up with a plan. Then I have to tell you awesome they are, because once I decided on the wood I needed I was really worried about it all fitting in my car, and they said no worries they would follow me home in one of their trucks with the wood if it didn’t fit, how nice is that?

 Luckily one of the guys got it all loaded in my car for me and I was ready to go.

First step was cutting my boards down to a more manageable size. My fire pit is 48 inches in diameter, so I cut them down closer to that size. I used 4 – 1 in x 8 in x 8 ft  boards.

The next step was drawing a circle on them, I nailed down a piece of string in the very center of my fire pit. Then I tied a pencil to the end and drew a big circle.

Next I screwed all the pieces together with a 1 x 4 that I cut in 3 pieces and some metal brackets. I wanted the table to sit flush down inside my fire pit, so I couldn’t just put the 1 x 4’s  all the way across, I had to use the metal brackets for the end pieces. I cut the 1 x 4’s to the right length, so they would fit snug inside the opening of my fire pit. I didn’t want the kids to be able to wiggle the top back and forth.

I used 2 different lengths of screws, longer (1 ¼) for the wood brackets, and shorter ones (¾) for the metal brackets. I screwed them all down with an electric drill making sure they didn’t poke thru the wood on the other side.

After it was all secured together, I was ready to haul out my favorite new toy – the jigsaw (read all about it here). I was surprised at how easy this circle was to cut out, my saw zipped right thru the wood. Ignore my ridiculous winter gloves, it was 30 degrees the day I built the table…last week…in April – sigh!

Next I sanded the whole thing down with a palm sander and applied a coat of wood conditioner to help the stain take evenly.

Then I applied 2 coats of walnut stain, followed by 2 coats of outdoor quality polyurethane. Make sure to polyurethane both sides to help waterproof your table.

Tada! Isn’t it so pretty? We have been LOVING this table! It’s the perfect height for the kids to sit and have an afternoon snack and it also a great spot for family game night too.

The table is nice and light too, and I have no problem taking it off myself and rolling it away when we are ready to get our s’mores on!

 

UPDATE: I know this probably goes with out saying, but make sure your fire pit is absolutely extinguished and cold before putting your table top on. We always throw water on our fire and wait until the next day to replace the cover. We don’t want your handwork going up in flames!

Also you may want to try pressure treated lumber to create this project, we have had a very rainy summer here in Michigan and I had one of the boards warp a bit. I added a couple more metal brackets to the back and that pretty much took care of the problem, but you may avoid the problem all together if you use treated wood.

Disclosure: I’m a member of the Ace Hardware Blogger Panel. Ace Hardware provided me with products and compensation for this post, but all opinions are 100 percent mine. All opinions and positions here do not necessarily reflect those of Ace Hardware.