Hi, anybody still reading (besides my mom)!? It’s been a while! Jack (14 months old) sure is keeping us busy. 🙂
Jack – Spring 2019
Now that the interior is (mostly) finished, we’re turning our attention to the exterior finishing touches and landscaping. One little project that we just completed was creating new steps up to the front porch.
Front steps – before
The issue with the existing front steps was that they were uneven – mainly in height. The first and last steps were unnaturally high. The treads were rather narrow too. In the photo above, you can see that they were poured long ago on top of brick.
Dad and Blaine removing some of the old sandstone walkway to make way for forms
My dad and husband, Blaine, devised a plan which involved pouring new concrete steps on top of the existing ones. The new steps would be even in height and tread width. First, they created wooden forms to contain the new concrete.
Installing forms
Wooden forms complete – view from front door
Wooden forms complete – waiting for weather to clear up before pouring concrete
Close up of the wooden forms on the bottom step
Once the forms were installed, we waited for the rain to pass before ordering concrete from our local ready mix provider. (The temporary plastic under the forms was meant to catch any oil that may have dripped from the wooden forms, as they were lightly coated in oil to prevent concrete from bonding to them.)
Blaine, Dad, and Larry finishing and removing forms
I missed the actually pouring of the concrete as I was out on a long run. I came home a couple hours later to find the guys finishing. Here are a couple pics that my husband took during the pour:
Blaine brought the concrete from the truck up to the stairs in the tractor bucket
Dad filling in the bottom step
After several hours of setting up, it was time to remove the wooden forms and finish the concrete.
We did a slightly rough finish
Curing the new steps
Then we allowed the concrete to cure for three days under a protective plastic cover.
New steps complete
There was much more thought put into these steps than it may seem. We are planning to (5-10 year plan) rework the front walkway and driveway, so there was some conversation with our designer about what color/material/finish the steps should be. In the end, we decided on plain ol’ concrete as we have found a natural stone that closely matches the color of unstained/natural concrete. These materials should work nicely together.
The new steps are a subtle change that most people may not notice, but it’s one more thing checked off our to-do list!
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- Before
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- After
~Miranda
Hello! I am still shyly hiding and checking your blog and instagram every other day or so. I don’t know if you have a counter on your blog that lists the region of the readers of your blog or instagram or how often we check in. It seems so one-sided to me (you tell me about you but you know nothing about me). The introvert in me loves the lurking aspect of following blogs but I do feel like I owe you something in return which is why I am a faithful follower and understand completely if you are busy living your life and can’t post anything for a while.
Your steps look great! And you are correct about the huge amount of work involved for what seems to be a “minor” improvement. When you think about how many people will use those steps in the future (and how many have used the old ones in the past) then those steps aren’t so “minor” after all! Quite important! Well done!
Have a wonderful summer!
Karla in CA
Hello Karla!
Jack is down for his morning nap so I have a minute to check in! 🙂 Thanks for reading and for the nice compliment about our new front porch steps. I hope to share soon about the work we’ve had done on our fireplace and chimneys. It’s another thing that seems so simple yet it is so much work. We are also in the middle of working with Maryanne White, landscape designer, to get a plan for our 2 acre yard. Hope to share about that soon too. 🙂
Summer is off to a great start here. Have a good one in CA too!
-Miranda