One of the major dangerous aspects of our home from the time we purchased it in 2012 was the deck stairs. Even in 2012, they were a little bit scary. They looked pretty cool though…
Karissa’s dad built quite a bit of bracing for our old stairs. Some braces to hold up the bottom post and a few under each of the first 3-4 steps.
But this year I began to notice more and more of the steps flexing when stepped on. The choice was either to brace every step or to replace the whole thing – like we probably should have done 8 years ago. So we decided it was time to do it right.
The first step was demo:
Then a supply run and prepping of the building materials:
I got some help hanging the stringers and installing the stair treads:
That was the easy part of the job. The hard part was making the railing. When we replaced our deck railings last summer, we chose to hand make the system rather than buy an off-the-shelf product. I had cut the posts to the correct height, drill 10 holes on each side of each post and post sleeve, and then fight the conduit into each hole and hope it all fit together at the right length.
Doing all of that with angles involved going down the stairs added a whole new layers to the onion. It took basically 2 days of fighting the materials, but we got it done!
After getting it put together, the railing needed a top handhold. I bought a 2×6 and cut it at an angle – and boom! We have new stairs with railings that match the upper section of our deck. It looks awesome and is finally safe!
We’ve been on a home improvement roll for the last few weeks. We replaced the entry door into the room that used to be our utility room. We moved the furnace at the end of 2016 and the water heater/softener in 2017. We then rearranged the entry into the room and added a closet to make it a bedroom. But the door into the room was solid and there is no window – so there is no natural light. We found a clearance exterior door with a frosted glass panel that would bring in light and maintain privacy – and got it installed pretty quickly. Now, the room has natural light, privacy, and feels like it could be a bedroom or home office.
Elsewhere on our DIY list, we’ve painted doors – after replacing all of the interior doors of our home – added trim/moulding around the newly installed doors (and new baseboards), begun to paint the stairs inside of our home, and apparently haven’t taken enough pictures of each little project…
The kids asked Grandma Cathy to have an Easter egg hunt at her house…in July. So Grandma said yes and the kids had a ball hunting eggs. Emerson opens each egg after finding them while Adelaide runs around picking up egg after egg. Emerson gets mad when she had more eggs than her..but doesn’t see the flaw in his strategy.
We continue to feast like kings on our vegan diet. I’ve always loved cooking and if we’re honest with ourselves, most of the flavor in foods comes from plants. So we’re on flavor overload eating nothing but plants!
We celebrated Independence Day at home for the first time in a long time. Usually, it’s a major event at the family lake house with loads of people. Our city cancelled fireworks, but the country club across the river in our back yard gave quite a show. They had live music from about 7pm until 11pm and their fireworks show lasted over 30 minutes!
We’ve been pretty obsessed with watching the data from the coronavirus pandemic. I update a case-count spreadsheet every day. We basically stay home and social distance when we’re with friends and family. The recent surges in Florida and Texas are troubling. And just to show that the virus isn’t political, the chart below is comparing case counts in red vs. blue counties. Note how both are now rising at the same, population-adjusted rate.
The kids are pretty good at understanding that “everything is cancelled” and that masks are mandatory when inside of stores or near other people. Not that they’ve been to stores, but still. They even decided to play outside while wearing masks the other day. Because they are compassionate and want to protect others.
Emerson got a new bike while his sister needed to use his old bike/her old bike rather than her new bike to learn to ride without training wheels. The smaller bike makes balancing easier and allows her to use her feet to avoid crashes.
We’re still jamming through our list of DIY projects. Painting more doors. Caulking the newly installed trim/moulding/base boards. The remaining big projects are carpeting the newly painted interior stairs, finishing our paver patio, and the hall bathroom full renovation. But we’re getting closer!
Beyond the projects and despite cancellations, we are having fun and enjoying ourselves. We hope you are too!
