Not for realsies. Just a small contained one.

We’ve been wanting some sort of flame element on the porch ever since the first day, but it obviously had to be safe, and preferably actually radiate some heat.

Anything fire pit was too large, too open and not fire safe.

We’ve been looking at ethanol fireplaces, but they were either way too small

or way fancy for our little outdoor spot.

Today we finally stumbled upon a chimenea that was small enough to fill the fire safe requirements for an open fire under a roof. We went to a new-ish Bunnings (large hardware store for you non-Aussies) in our general area yesterday and it’s now our favourite. Heaps better than our local one. Golly gosh, it was HUGE and it had EVERYTHING.

Going on a bit of a tangent here, but Bunnings have been my favourite store since very early on after arriving in Australia. And when I met The Banker and found out his mother actually worked for my favourite store… that pretty much sealed the deal for me, HA! True story.

She’s no longer with Bunnings but now we’re married and have a child so whatcha gonna do, eh? (NOT a true story, only joking ya’ll). (Hi R!)

Aaaanywho. We went to Bunnings to pick up a padlock (we sure know how to do family outings) but ended up running in to this tiny chimenea and carted it on to a trolley together with some firewood and drove it home.

It is just the right size for the space.

I had to prep it with some sand. It needed almost ten litres of sand. I measured up ten litres of water in a bucket and put some masking tape inside the bucket by the water rim to mark where ten litres were. Poured out the water and filled the bucket with sand up to the masking tape.

Filled up the chimenea and then laid the tiles for fire proofing. (Both the sand and the tiles were bought at the same time as recommended by the store.)

The chimenea needed to be conditioned with a small fire for a couple of hours. So I fired up. The Banker thinks I get very easily fired up.

Aaaaah… fire. Please tell me there’s a little bit of a pyromaniac in you too?!