It is another day and we finally got to working on our side stairs. If you remember, this project was completely covered in snow when we bought the house so it was a bit of a surprise when all the snow melted and we saw this:
The previous owners had at least gotten all the stair frames in and part of the wall but it definitely needed work! There was a bunch of debris that had gotten into the frames that needed to be cleaned out - not to mention that they left a big pile of dirt, stumps, roots, and rocks that also needs work.
We knew this project was going to take some time so the first thing we decided to tackle was the stairs themselves.
Luckily the pervious owners had told us where they had bought the supplies for the stairs as there were bricks that we needed to buy that fit exactly into the stair frames. We had 13 stairs and each stair took 10.5 bricks - so we drove off to buy 137 bricks (I will cover the cost of everything at the end of the post). We ended up choosing a brown/gray/purple brick. For the .5 brick we just had the place we bought them from cut 7 bricks in half for us.
We also needed rocks and sand to place in the base of the stairs. There was already the rock base needed so we just needed sand. We had to buy a total of 11 bags of coarse sand that went underneath and poured between the bricks once they were placed. We also bought 1 bag of fine sand to fill in the gaps in between the bricks.
Here is the stack of bricks and tools we ended up with:
We knew this project was going to take some time so the first thing we decided to tackle was the stairs themselves.
Luckily the pervious owners had told us where they had bought the supplies for the stairs as there were bricks that we needed to buy that fit exactly into the stair frames. We had 13 stairs and each stair took 10.5 bricks - so we drove off to buy 137 bricks (I will cover the cost of everything at the end of the post). We ended up choosing a brown/gray/purple brick. For the .5 brick we just had the place we bought them from cut 7 bricks in half for us.
We also needed rocks and sand to place in the base of the stairs. There was already the rock base needed so we just needed sand. We had to buy a total of 11 bags of coarse sand that went underneath and poured between the bricks once they were placed. We also bought 1 bag of fine sand to fill in the gaps in between the bricks.
Here is the stack of bricks and tools we ended up with:
You can see the piece of wood sitting on top of the bricks. We used this to smooth out the sand once we poured it into the stair molds.
Step 1: Clean out the debris from the stairs and pull out some of the rock bed so that it would be deep enough for the sand and bricks.
Step 1: Clean out the debris from the stairs and pull out some of the rock bed so that it would be deep enough for the sand and bricks.
Step 2: Pour in the sand and tamp it down. We could have bought or rented a hand tamper but Joe's dad let us borrow a maul that worked great to pound down the sand. At this point we also smoothed it out with the wood board and padded it down just a bit more with a brick.
Step 3: Lay the bricks. I put together a map of how I wanted the bricks laid out and we followed that guide. Here we are with the first set of bricks in. As we put them in, we pounded them down with a rubber mallet to ensure they were stabilized.
You can see Joe hard at work doing all of these steps.
(This was a long day too as we had run a 5k earlier that day and it was HOT so I was really proud of us for getting motivated to work on this project! We also had the help of my father in law which made all the difference.)
(This was a long day too as we had run a 5k earlier that day and it was HOT so I was really proud of us for getting motivated to work on this project! We also had the help of my father in law which made all the difference.)
Step 4: Once the bricks were place, we filled in the gaps with sand again to help make them stabilized. As the sand dried, more gaps became visible so we added more sand and waited for it to dry again. We may still need to add more sand a few more time to get all the gaps filled in completely but here are the stairs 99% done (don’t mind all the sand - that will get cleared off in time).
At this point we have the stairs petty much finished (besides adding in more top sand) and here is our cost break out for the project:
137 bricks = $93.27
Cutting 7 bricks in half = $20.62
11 bags of coarse sand = $35.81
1 bag of fine sand = #4.02
TOTAL = $153.72
Which I don’t think it too terrible to now have functioning permanent outdoor side stairs.
Now to fully finish this area of our yard we are going to have to landscape and build the wall around the stairs. We plan to work on the wall sometime this fall. We will try to tackle the landscaping a bit at a time and hope to smooth out the area and plant grass there eventually. As a first step we decided to just get the big stumps out of the way as long as we had my father in law there helping us.
Here is the VERY heavy stump that we decided needed to be moved:
137 bricks = $93.27
Cutting 7 bricks in half = $20.62
11 bags of coarse sand = $35.81
1 bag of fine sand = #4.02
TOTAL = $153.72
Which I don’t think it too terrible to now have functioning permanent outdoor side stairs.
Now to fully finish this area of our yard we are going to have to landscape and build the wall around the stairs. We plan to work on the wall sometime this fall. We will try to tackle the landscaping a bit at a time and hope to smooth out the area and plant grass there eventually. As a first step we decided to just get the big stumps out of the way as long as we had my father in law there helping us.
Here is the VERY heavy stump that we decided needed to be moved:
It took three of us and a shovel for leveraged to push the stump out of its hole and roll it down the little hill of dirt there.
A good chunk of the weight was dirt, so Joe worked to get some of that dirt off so we could lift it into the bed of his dad's truck.
Now we have a hole where the stump used to be but at least we are at a stage where we can hopefully smooth it all out. We are hoping to tackle that part of the project later this year.