How About Stairs?

We were now halfway into the month of June, and though we could use our deck, we still had no way to get down from it. I certainly wasn't planning to jump in my condition! The race was on, as we committed to hosting Greg's family for the 4th of July, and Gina's 65th birthday party. 

But, before the stairs could even go on, Greg had to start on one of the walls to enclose the shed, that would be too difficult to take on after. It involved a masonry partition with wood framing above. 

Once the wall was complete, it was time for the stringers to go in. Originally, we thought it would save time to buy precut stringers. But, as it turned out, the ratio of tread to riser was not quite the 11"/7" standard we had used in our plans. This meant that the store bought, pre-cut stringer was not going to land on the sonotube we already had imbedded in the ground for the foundation. It was also made out of a 2x 10 instead of a 2x12, which of course, did not satisfy Greg from a structural standpoint. So, he ended up cutting his own. 

For the risers, we again opted for a white PVC trim product to keep maintenance down. 

After all of the structure was in place for the stairs, it was time to fill the last foundation tube with concrete. Greg decided not to do this one when we had the original concrete delivery because he wanted to be sure where the stair structure needed to tie into the foundation, and to make sure that the height of the footing was correct as well, 

It took more bags of concrete that I care to remember to fill that hole. 

As previously mentioned, Greg was up against a party deadline, so he was at it every night that the weather allowed, until the sun left for the day, approaching 9:00 pm. Below, he's painting the tops of the stringers before putting the treads on to help protect them from any water that might sit on that edge. 

Finally, it was time for the treads to go on!

And last, but not least, the railing. This was another complicated installation. The prefab PVC railings did not come in the right segment length for our spacing, which meant that Greg had to adjust a regular railing kit to make it work. He had to individually modify each of the plastic balusters to create the correct angle. I think it's safe to sat he did an excellent job!

And just like that, in right under the wire, the deck was suitable for entertaining!

The Big Pour

The first Saturday in May, I awoke to quite a bit of commotion in the back yard. Yup, it was time to pout the concrete. Jeff and Doug were here bright and early to join in the mess fun. 

One of the most important and time sensitive parts of this job was making sure the the anchor bolts that will secure the columns to the foundations were properly located. Here, Greg is triangulating the location of the center bolt, with the help of Doug and Jeff at the other end of the tapes. At least he knew that the anchor bolts would be correctly spaced from each other because of the jog he built. Pardon the screen in this shot. I couldn't open the door or I would have hit Jeff (the yellow blob in the corner) in the head. 

With the anchor bolts properly set, it was time to fill in the rest of the slab. 

The guys took turns bringing the wheelbarrow to the concrete truck to for a load to dump in the slab. It took at least two people to move the wheelbarrow when it was full. The original intention was to have the truck much closer to the slab. But we'll get to that part of the story in a minute. 

Once the slab was full, they used a 2x4 to smooth the surface, and make sure it was nice and level.

So, we needed about 3 cubic yards of concrete to fill in our 4 foundations and our slab. We opted to have a concrete truck come deliver this, as opposed to having to mix dozens upon dozens of bags of concrete ourselves. 

As I mentioned, we had hoped that the truck would be able to make it into the back yard to pour directly into the slab. But, well, it had been raining for a few weeks, or so it felt, by that point. And, 3 yards of concrete plus the weigh of the truck carrying it isn't exactly light. 

  

So, the truck got stuck in the yard. Dangerously close to the edge of the house. 

And, it did a number on our path in the process. Good thing we plan to redo the driveway and this path later this fall. 

It also pretty much blocked access from the back side of the truck, where the concrete comes out, around the corner of the house. Which meant that the guys had to push the wheelbarrow all the way around the front of the house, around the red fence, and navigate the dirt and rock pile in our former patio to get the concrete where it needed to go. Not fun. 

And then there was the little matter of getting the truck out of the yard. The concrete guy called one of his employees, who showed up in a dump truck, with a really long chain. 

Greg held our drooping electrical wires out of the way during the tow. I would like to pretend I hadn't seen this!

Thankfully, it worked, and we didn't have to spend an extra $900 to have the truck towed out professionally. Then, all that was left was a lot of destruction, and some really deep ruts in our lawn. 

(Greg is 5'-10", Jeff is 6'-4)

Oh, and a fresh new concrete slab that was just dying for an inscription. 

Prepping for Concrete

The next major step in creating the deck was to pour the concrete for the foundations and the slab that will become the floor of our shed. But in order to do that, there was a lot of prep that needed to be done.

The holes needed to be protected for over a week from days upon days of April showers. Some of the many rocks that were unearthed came in very handy in holding down the plastic sheeting. 

We had a brief weekend getaway to DC for my friend Tracy's wedding, and then the clock started ticking down to our 8am Saturday morning concrete delivery last weekend. Which meant Greg was outside almost every night that week until dark, digging, and setting up the forms for the slab. 

He also created a jig to hold the three anchor bolts which will fasten the deck posts to the foundations so that they would be spaced exactly the right distance from each other, and all he would have to do after the concrete was poured was make sure they were the correct distance from the house. 

The next step was to lay a bed of sand to create a base for the concrete that would separate it from the earth below. This mean that Greg got to drive his truck into the back yard, one of his dreams come true!

Michael and and Bob came over for the final push to help spread and tamp the sand. (I take a lot of these pictures through the screen door, which you can see in the shot below)

It was definitely dark by the time they finished, but everything was finally ready for concrete!