Weed matting under cottage stones used to make an outdoor fire pit area.
The project
I have built a fire pit area in my backyard. I removed the weeds and dirt, levelled the area and installed garden edging to keep the cottage stones in place.
I put down a 25mm layer of road base, compacted, and then a 50mm layer of my cottage stones on top. A layer of weed mat was also placed, not so much to keep weeds from growing, but mainly to stop the stones mixing with any dirt or getting pushed down into the dirt.
In the end my wife and I came to a compromise on the location of the firepit. It shifted a little further to the left from where I wanted it but you can still see the outdoor TV from here and are both happy with where we have positioned it.
I decided to increase the size of the stones to 14mm so they are not moved around so easily as 7mm but still easy for people to walk on. I grabbed some weed matting and pegs from Bunnings to put over the "road base" layer before I put the stones down.
I was able to get the fire pit done over the weekend, and in my opinion it's come up really well. 
Just a little bit more work to do - need to mulch with pea straw around my fruit trees. I have some flowers and mulch to go into that gap you can see in the photos that runs in between the lawn and the fire pit area and do some general weeding and tidying.
