Patio Pad 2012

I've got this fireplace now, one that was put in along with the new kitchen and all. It's wood-burning, which I love. In the last three years, though, I've had only a handful of fires. (This winter, it was because we didn't have a winter, mind you.) Part of the reason is I was having to depend on bundles from Lowe's, which were always pretty good wood but that's not copasetic with my finicky financial sensibilities.

Now I've finally got a good source of firewood, and I want a big load of it. But where to store it?

Within the last year, I've gotten a big firewood rack and a cover for it. That's all still boxed up in the South Parlour, where I've got a lot of junk stored for now. I didn't yet have anywhere to set it up outside.

Once I started working on landscaping, and digging up this hard red Piedmont clay, I began depositing it outside the back kitchen door, in anticipation of creating at least a level place for that rack. Then my idea for this patio pad grew, and that slowed me down quite a bit.

That meant another run to Lowe's. And then as it grew, they ran out of my color of pavers. But I've persevered and now I've got a completed patio pad and place for my firewood rack, as of this afternoon.

Not perfect, not professional, but here's what it is: done.