Tools of the Design Trade

When I graduated from college several years ago (ahem, maybe more than several years..) I never imagined that I would be using my degree in English Literature to design and manufacture fire pits. The degree is useful when I sit down to write this blog and I loved my years at college studying Chaucer, Shakespeare and Faulkner. But the tools of my current trade are not novels or computer keyboards (mostly) but plastic templates, Sharpie markers, soapstone “pencils” and a tape measure.

Making a fire pit is a dirty job, and noisy too, since I make them in a steel fabricating plant where there is lots of welding, grinding and steel cutting going on. But it is also creative and gratifying, especially when I can work with a customer to design a fire pit, help them come up with a design that they like and then make it into a beautiful fire pit that I know they will use and enjoy for many years.

Being in business for myself and by myself also means that I wear lots of different hats and have learned over the past year to do many different things. Coming into this venture, I was a true “techno-idiot”. I am still pretty much on that side of the technology fence but can now do at least a few things on my computer. Most of it is fun, some of it is hard (for me at least) and some of it is not so great, like accounting. I hope the IRS doesn’t come after me anytime soon!

And when it gets to be too much, I come home, pour a glass of wine, light a fire and enjoy my handiwork! Check out the cool Texas Longhorn that I made for a customer. Some of my custom work can be seen on my website Fancyfirepit.com .

Custom designed Texas Longhorn Fire Pit

Happy long weekend! Joy

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