It’s been a long time since my last post, and a lot has happened. I had this silly idea that I would be able to blog about each main section after it was all complete. But this house doesn’t go up like that. It goes up in layers… long, never-ending, maddening layers. But, we’re getting close. We’ll be in by Christmas for sure. In the meantime, this post is about some fixes that we’ve made to the walkway with the help of the Palomino brothers, who are really wonderful.
The Landing
First, the landing to our main doorway was really a problem. I cannot find any photos of the before, and that’s probably because I was repressing the image. In any case, the gist of it is that the steps to the main walkway landed in a section that was about 4" below the actual level of the door landing area, so you would have to cross a slight "depression" and then go up again to get to the front door. This was a result of the height requirement of the stairs. It looked awful, but Chris said, "We can’t do anything about it; County requirements." I said:
"You’ll fix it. You always think of something and then fix it."
The picture below shows the first step in fixing that. Notice how the landing area beneath the step and the entry pad to the right are on the same level?
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Here’s another photo that shows the old steps. Aren’t they awful? Of course, we were planning to tile over them anyhow, but still, pretty unappealing. The last step, with the improved landing, was now inconsistent with the rise of all the other steps. But Chris had a plan to adjust the rise of the bottom step along with all the others, such that all the steps would be of a consistent height. He did this by adjusting the rise from an initial 8" inches to 7.5".
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How to Fix Concrete
The phrase "cast in stone" doesn’t mean that you can’t do it over again, it would appear. In this picture, you can see Rigo and Alberto after they completed pouring the adjustments to the old steps. They did this by drilling holes into the old steps on either side and bending in rebar on the front. Each step had about 4 inches of concrete in the front. On the top, the amount of additional concrete varied from about 3" on the bottom-most step to about 1/2 inches on the top step. The bender boards allow for the nice curving shape.
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Here’s a shot from the top. You can see below how the newly-created landing pad is at the same level as the main doorway. Rigo puts some final touches on the steps. Alberto smiles.
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Fixed Concrete Steps
Pretty nice job, huh? And we’re far from done. The walls will be stuccoed and the steps will be tiled… but that’s for the next layer of this big project.
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