Long Time Coming

Since we've lived in this house, the outdoor stairs have been the bane of my existence. I fear for my life every time I set foot on them. Okay... that's an exaggeration. But perhaps not totally out of the realm, considering the minor slip I had on our interior stairs... when I was 7 months pregnant... that resulted in a fractured elbow.

Anyway.

I'm a klutz, is what it is. And these stairs are not klutz friendly. Especially when the klutz is carrying a 30-pound squirming toddler up and down them.

See for yourselves:



They were built on a diagonal to compensate for... something. I don't know. Also, no balusters. The wood was splintering with age. And the concrete block of a bottom step was chipping away.



To give you some spacial perspective, the main entry is not at the front of the house. It's off to the side. The door at the front of the house is actually the entrance to the in-law apartment downstairs. This proves to be a bit confusing for first-time visitors and pizza delivery guys.


Dizzy yet?

So when we talked about re-doing the stairs, all those many years ago, we wanted to make them safer, nicer, and look more prominent.

To get the job done we called our boys from Choice Woodworking, who happen to include our brother-in-law Nick and good friend Paul, and who basically did our entire interior remodel (so far). Despite our obvious bias, these guys are skilled artists. And I want to marry them. Or have my sister marry one of them, either way.

Tony tore the stairs down the day before, and The Boys spent a couple days building the new stairs. Needless to say, I was giddy with excitement with the whole shebang. It only took a few days, but it was quite a journey.

Day 1: Demo and wood delivery


Des supervised the demo.


Which went fairly quick.

Then the supplies came... Another job for Supervisor Des. There was a big truck, a cool forklift, and huge planks of wood involved. He was all over this.


Look at the size of that truck.


If toddlers could say "OMG!"


Here he comes!


This'll do.


Get back to work!

Day 2: There was a jackhammer. And some framing. And some ass kicking.


New dad, Nick, hard at work.


Mhmm, mhmm. Lookin' good.


It came together fast!


Remnants of their art.

Day 3: Finished product


Ooooooh...


Aaaaah...


Eeeeee!!


Thank you, thank you, thank you.

So there's our new stairway!

I leave the front door open so I can stare at it all day. The first night I pulled a sleeping bag out there and slept on the deck. Not really. But I thought about it. Tony's really excited about putting a pumpkin out there. Which, obviously yeah. There will be pumpkins. It's just so cute that he said that.

A final side by side, before/after comparison:




Our new stairway survived its first hurricane unscathed. Obviously. I mean, looka that thing!