City Backyard, Fire Pit: Squeezing One In
My mom stood in my backyard with a tape measure hanging out of her coat pocket, looked at the eight feet between my back door and the fence, then looked…
A Patio Heater on a Wood Deck: Base and Heat
Okay so I counted this because I am that person who counts things: nineteen times last month. That is how many nights between October and now I have dragged my…
An Outdoor Rug Straight on Dirt
Everyone acts like “outdoor rug” is basically synonymous with “throw it wherever, it’s outdoor, it can take it.” That’s the whole marketing pitch, right there in the name. Outdoor. As…
Charcoal in a Fire Pit: Not What It Was Built For?
I’ll tell you the honest version of this story, not the version where I look competent, because that one’s a lie. Two summers ago I bought a fire pit off…
Gas Patio Heaters Indoors: I Would Not
I was standing on my back porch steps last November, in two coats and the fingerless gloves my mother thinks are ridiculous, dragging our propane patio heater six feet closer…
A Fire Pit Left Out All Year
I own four fire pits. Four. I said that number out loud to my sister last month and she just looked at me the way she looks at anything she…
A Fire Pit Inside a Gazebo: Cozy Idea, Careful Answer
Marcus texted me a photo at eight o’clock on a Friday night. New gazebo, cedar posts, asphalt shingle roof he’d put on himself over a long weekend, and sitting dead…
Fire Pit on a Concrete Slab
I bought my first fire pit off a clearance rack in early October, the kind of purchase that made complete sense at 9pm on a Tuesday and almost none the…
Patio Heaters Inside: The Reason They Live Outdoors
I nearly gassed myself on my own porch two Novembers ago, and I want to be upfront about that before I tell anyone else what to do with a patio…
Not All Bricks Survive a Fire Pit
Corinne stood in my backyard last Tuesday, hands on hips, looking at the pile of brick I’d hauled home over about six weekends, and said, “Isla. Some of those look…