Our New Cozy Firepit Area for Fall

We are venturing very close to fall here in Colorado, so I wanted to get this longtime project wrapped up this month. Today, I am sharing our new cozy firepit area for fall. This project has had many phases and is finally ready to reveal! Definitely stay tuned to the end of the post to see the reveal at night!

This post is sponsored by O’Toole’s Garden Centers but all of the designs, commentary, and opinions are my own. You can see my disclosures HERE.

The year before last, it started with removing a large stone pathway that leads to a large open area towards the back of our yard on the west end. We had it replaced with pathway breeze to clean up the look. It was quite a project and one that we were happy to have great help with! You can see a bit of that process here in these videos…

Some more of the “before” shots!

At that time, we just put a portable wood-burning firepit out there with a few chairs until my husband was ready to build the new one. Our daughter and her friends love to make smores so she asked that we finish the new one in time for her graduation party. That is what lit a fire (ha, ha!!) under my husband to get it made.

We already have a large built-in fire pit on our main back patio, but we also wanted a real wood-burning fireplace for our cool fall nights. There is just nothing better than a large, crackling wood-burning fire! It reminds us of our dozens of epic fires on our glamping trips in the past.

Our New Cozy Firepit Area for Fall

It was really my goal to make this area as cozy as possible. With so many hard surfaces, plantings are key! This area is mostly “exposed” to the rest of our yard so I thought of creating some planter posts to hang outdoor lighting to help “enclose” the area.

Soooo…we recently had some concrete work done on our front porch, so I had a crew member fill up the three planters I bought for this project. Here is a video that shows how we put them together…

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Once they were cured, we moved them out to the firepit area. The next step was to spray paint them black. You can see how I did that here…

Next, I drilled holes just above the concrete to help with drainage. I drilled two holes per side in case one of the holes gets clogged. Here is a video of how I made it happen…

Now it is time for the plantings for our new firepit area for Fall!!

Fall warmth was the key here AND utilizing the amazing variety of plants and potted plants from my local O’Toole’s Garden Center! I started with bringing out some of the planter pots that I created earlier this season for my back patio. I couldn’t resist the richness of the feather grasses I used in our black planters. You can see the whole post of 10 Ways to Give your Patio a Makeover HERE.

As you can see they have all gone crazy since I planted them!!

For the new planter posts, I used a combination of fall-themed plants which included zinnias, coleus, marigolds, potato vine, etc. Adding plantings to them really softened the look. Plus, I purchased this gorgeous pre-planted fall mix planter to make things easier on myself. O’Toole’s has these in stock right now so run over there and grab your own!

For an added touch of fall, I just placed in a few faux pumpkins around. Because of the squirrels and bunnies we have in our backyard, we cannot use real pumpkins out there. So, faux it is! I have sourced some great options for you below.

Since we will entertain a lot out here, I set up a rustic serving table I used to use behind our patio seating area. It was perfect to provide a serving area AND to have a place to store extra wood.

For the side tables, I just used some stumps that were cut from some of the trees we have taken down in our yard. I love purposing these organic materials from our yard! When we have big groups out here, they can also be used as stools. It is likely that you might not have something like this in your own yard, so I sourced some other great options below.

Our fall evenings can get very cool, so I always make sure that I have plenty of throw blankets on hand for our guests. Plus, this really adds to the coziness of the space! Don’t you think?!

The final and most dramatic part of this reveal/project was the addition of the outdoor string lighting. This was the method to the madness of creating the planter posts I showed you above! 😉

This was an interesting journey/learning curve. Once we got the pots/posts ready and I filled them with the plantings, it was time to install the outdoor string lighting. What we didn’t anticipate was the weight of the 48 feet of lighting. It caused the posts/pot to tilt into the firepit. My hubby remedied the problem by counterbalancing the posts with anchored wiring.

Had we known they were as heavy as it was, we might have made a few alterations to the plan. I have sourced a few lighter-weight options below that would work perfectly.

Here are a few more details of our new cozy firepit area for fall…

You can shop the look here…

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Our New Cozy Firepit Area for Fall AT NIGHT!

Here are some images and videos of our new cozy space at night…

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of our new cozy firepit area for fall! It has been quite a process to get it to where it is now, but we can finally really enjoy it…just in time for fall. Let me know what you think in the comments below!