DIY Backyard Fire Pit Area – Landscaping Design Ideas

There’s something magical about gathering around a fire pit in your backyard—sharing stories, roasting marshmallows, and creating lasting memories with family and friends. If you’re considering adding a fire pit to your backyard, you’re in for a treat! I’m going to give you a peak into how I brainstorm creative design ideas that will help you build the perfect DIY fire pit area. From choosing the right materials to incorporating stylish seating, get ready to ignite your inspiration and bring your backyard vision to life. 

I would put a lot of money on the assumption that you are spending way too much time and money on multiple different TV subscriptions. I have a challenge for you – the next time Netflix asks you “Are you still watching?” turn it off and go check out Canva.  A subscription (they also have a free version that is pretty sweet) that you’ll actually benefit from! I use Canva for EVERYTHING!! Seriously. I use it to make all of our birthday invitations, Christmas cards, make signs, test out room layout options, create mock ups for every project I do and so much more! It is by far the most favorite subscription I have. I should probably mention that I have zero affiliation with Canva. This is not a sponsored post, I just simply want to enhance your life with this knowledge.

I’ve been working on our backyard play area this summer. Between the trampoline and the play set, I built a fire pit area which also doubles as a seating place for adults supervising play. I’m going to show you how I have used Canva to help me visual different surrounding landscaping ideas and play around with fire pit area design options. Let’s dive in!

Start With Your Base Image

We have avery large backyard that was so poorly maintained by the previous owners. This back corner was a massive, over grown garden – ehm, weed farm. It took A LOT of work to get down to just dirt and begin building this play area. Here’s where we’re at today with the outdoor fire pit area. I need to brainstorm some surrounding landscape ideas, potential fencing options, seating and light designs.

Landscaping Options

We very intentionally left a space between our fence line and the design of this play area. We did not want grass back there because mowing would be a nightmare and *eventually* we will get around to landscaping the entire fence line in our backyard so we wanted this corner to be an extension of that. I think I would like to use a material that contrasts the colors we have going on right now. Probably either white rocks or black mulch as the base and then add in some rocks, plants, flower garden, etc. 

Using the Magic Editor, I highlighted the surrounding landscaping and asked it to add a wooden privacy fence and different landscaping options. Use the arrow on the right hand side to scroll through the images it generated.

Add Lighting

What’s a fire pit area without lighting? I envision having some cute string lights out there for our evening marshmallow roasting. However, I am worried about using glass bulbs because we usually get a few hail storms throughout the summers and I cannot have glass bulbs breaking above these rocks where little, bare feet will be running.  But I do love the look of them! So, if you happen to know of some string lights that don’t use glass bulbs please let me know! 

Using the “pictures” and “elements” tabs I was able to add these lights and poles to my design.

Outdoor Seating

I know we will be spending a lot of quality time in this outdoor area so seating is important. There is no shortage of outdoor seating options on the market – it’s quite overwhelming actually. However, outdoor furniture, especially furniture that is going to be out in the sun and rain, is not going to last very long so I have a hard time justifying spending a lot of money on it. I’m hoping to grab something off of FB marketplace soon. But, to narrow in on a few different styles, I used Canva to look at a couple different seating options. It is important to me that this gathering space has comfortable seating. I wanted to see some teak adirondack chairs and a more modern style of seating.

The Whole Picture

This space is rather large and I cannot get the entire thing in one photo but here is a zoomed out view to give you a better visual of this part of the backyard design. To the left of the fire pit area is the trampoline and to the right is the swing set and other kid toys. Peep the super cute DIY concrete pavers I made for the pathway.

Pretty sweet, huh? Are you convinced yet? Canva is the shit. Go cancel your HBO subscription and trade it for something that will actually add value to your life – I promise you won’t be disappointed! 

I hope this gave you some insight into how I used Canva to help me brainstorm my backyard fire pit design ideas. This project has been a series of easy, DIY projects that are all coming together to create an awesome outdoor living space. Follow along for more tutorials and to see the final results!

And, if you’re thinking “Okay, Emily, that’s cool but I don’t want to put that much effort into it” then guuuuess what?! I created a FREE mood board template  in Canva (duh) that is super simple and easy to use! Just drag and drop your furniture and decor into the template to create a flawless mood board and help you visualize your space! Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Have questions, comments or want to share your ideas? Please comment on this post below!