Stair Repair

As the addition project was wrapping up, we had yet another project that came up, rather abruptly and unexpectedly. The steps to our backyard patio began collapsing, and it was clear we would have to take pretty immediate action to make sure we could exit (safely) from that door. And since that is how we let the dog out, among other things, we definitely could not ignore the problem. 

With the stair treads beginning to sag dramatically and everything feeling very "soft", we got down low to investigate. The wood was clearly rotting away and splitting. Here's the bottom of the stringer (did you know that piece is called a stringer? we didn't until last year). It was resting directly on the ground, which we have since learned is not correct because of said likelihood of rotting.

Yikes...

The top part of the stringer was splitting, probably because the rotten bottom made the whole thing move out of position, making the first step especially treacherous.

D did some research and decided this was a manageable do-it-yourself project (he and I have different ideas of DIY...). So he got to work, realizing that he could not take too long to leave us without back steps. He took apart the entire thing to remove the rotting stringers.

The old stringer went to the wood facing board just below the deck floor, but the new one was a little lower (even despite lifting it an inch, see below), so D had to add a bit more wood to having something to attach it to:

The biggest change from the old steps was making sure that the stringers did not rest on dirt, where they would rot more quickly. We bought some pavers to sit them on--which is why I mentioned that everything was about an inch higher now than it was before. We are pretty sure that this set of steps is really supposed to have one additional step on it, but obviously we did not have another stair tread to add, so we worked with what we had:

And voila! Steps that are not about to collapse. The decking material is still old and flimsy and we'd love to add this whole back exit to our list of things to remodel. We have ideas floating through our heads on how to build it out and add some screening to make it a walk-out screened in porch, but that's a project for another day. If we do any work, we'd also get materials to match the back desk of the new addition, in Trex pebble gray with white trim and matching handrails. So that was partly why it just wasn't worth trying to upgrade these while we were in emergency repair mode. Hopefully in a few years, it will look completely different anyway.

Spring Projects

We are finally getting to the projects that we did not have time for in the fall, when we realized we had missed the warm weather window (how's that for alliteration?) for applying exterior paints and wood conditioners. D has been raking up and bagging most of the remaining leaves. Today he also applied Thompsons Water Seal to the little bits of bare wood holding up our back porch steps. I took on a few projects as well:

First, last week, I made what will probably be my only attempt this year at landscaping (I retreat inside when it gets warm and buggy), by adding a pretty pink jasmine plant (jasmimum polyanthum) to our lamppost. I'm not one for gardening but there was a great idea in a magazine to wrap a lamppost in chicken wire and then plant a viney plant at the base, so that it will grow up the post. Here it is before I filled in the hole:

I tied the (plastic) wire on with zip ties and then tied the vines to it gently with string. It doesn't look very impressive but the area gets a lot of sun and no little critters have tried to eat it yet, so I consider that a good sign for future growth.

Here's a picture of what it could look like in bloom, one day:

(photo credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/mondomuse/3268234488/)

While I was digging a hole for the jasmine plant, I started to realize exactly how annoying it was that we had a "bumper crop" of acorns this year. Besides loudly falling on my car all fall, those little guys really set up house. I photographed just a few but I pulled out dozens. They are in all our flower beds, making themselves comfortable--safe from any mowing activity:

At this rate we are going to end up living on an oak tree farm!

Today my big project was to cover the bare wood on our picture window. It's a lot harder to scrape paint, even barely-adhering paint, than I thought. I spent an hour or so hacking at it with a metal scraper, a wire brush, and a razor. Even though I figured the paint was not original to the house, I wore a little face mask in case there was lead dust. (They make home-buyers sign so many lead-disclosures that I think they made me a little paranoid.)

The obligatory "before" shots (this was after I scraped most of the loose paint, so the windows look even worse than usual).

We used Sherwin William's Duration Exterior in gloss finish. Since we didn't know exactly what color "white" we were working with and how much of the window's color was actually just dirt and aging, we went with untinted out-of-the-can white. It is definitely different, but we are hoping that a little rain, sun, and dirt evens it out. It's close enough that you can't see the difference in the photo:

(Isn't it nice of our cat to model for us?)

And finally, a few more random yard shots of our flowering plants. If you are able to identify any of them, let us know.

Pretty pink blossoms that the bees seem to love (also a view of our as-yet untreated window, if you look closely):

Beautiful white blooms near our garage.

And mystery buds on a tree in our backyard (with more pictures of the fully-bloomed tree to follow).