One Step at a Time

This was a small project that had been nagging at us for a while. When you open the back door from the downstairs kitchen, it's a big step down to ground level. It startled us when we first moved in, and it's startled a lot of other people since then. We've been wanting to put in a proper set of steps for a long time, and this weekend we finally did it.

In case you're wondering, stairs and steps are usually about 6" or 7" high. That feels normal, comfortable, and safe. If you have to step up or down much more than 7 inches, it starts to feel funny. Especially if it's a big step down. Ours? It was 13" down to the ground. People would go "ugh!" and get that momentary look of panic on their faces, thinking they'd somehow accidentally missed the step and were about to face-plant in our backyard. No more.

You can see here that there's a brick step right underneath the door, but it's not the right size. It's old, but we don't think it's original to the house. My best guess is that it was added in the 1930s when the house was remodeled (for the lavish sum of $2000, according to a local newspaper account). It's clear that the brick was done after the wooden skirting, because the ship lap siding goes behind the brick. It's not doing the job, but on the other hand, we don't want to demolish it if we don't have to. And it turns out, we don't have to.

Covering the brick with some wooden steps would be easy enough... but it's never that easy. We also need to accommodate a temporary wheelchair ramp up to the door. We get a fair number of wheelchair-bound visitors here, and we've gone to a lot of trouble to build a ramp all the way from the sidewalk to our backyard. The metal temporary ramp is the final step (as it were), into the house. Without the ramp, the whole project is pointless. So we've got to build steps that go over the brick but stay under the ramp. Piece of cake.

Remember when your 3rd grade teacher said math was important because you'd use it later in life? She was right. We fiddled with the numbers and came up with a design that could do everything we wanted. Rather than use stringers alongside the steps (like we did on the back porch), we just built a kind of box that sits on top of the brick platform. It effectively raises the step to a perfect 6" height below the door and -- ta-da! -- it's also 6" up from ground level! So stepping out of the back door feels less like cliff diving and more like a stroll in the park.

Nothing around here is level, of course, so some shims and sanding were involved. Then the framework got screwed into the skirting underneath the door, plus an expansion bolt down into the brick. That should hold everything in place. The whole thing is designed to shed water so it doesn't get trapped anywhere and start to rot the wood.

Most of the pieces on top are redwood strips about 1 inch wide, except for the very front piece, which is a 2x4. Since it's a lot thicker than all the other pieces, I notched it out so that when it rests on the framework it's the same height as everything else. I also did a quick roundover on the router to put a bullnose on the front. A few extra strips across the front hide the underlying brick but leave just enough of a gap to let water out and avoid resting on the damp ground.

Now my biggest concern is getting used to walking on it. We've made that long step down for so many years that I'll probably trip the first dozen times I come out the door.