View full sizeOne set of our new steps help navigate the backyard from the lawns edge down past the fire pit and to the raised vegetable bed.We have been blessed with many things in our lives -- three wonderful children, a beautiful grandson, jobs we enjoy, full heads of (in my case, mostly gray) hair -- but one gift we did not receive, particularly in our home of the past 20-plus years, is a flat yard.
The quarter acre is, quite accurately, one sustained slope, which makes half the lawn mowing easy, the other half a chore.
And it also means some terracing to get the most out of the yard.
And, steps so we can avoid, as much as possible, what my son called my "old man fall."
Marcia originally put in steps about 17 years ago, with my primary contribution -- OK, my only contribution -- being working enough hours that I was never in her way. I have to say, I was mightily impressed by what she came up with, and held up my end of the project, too.
But the fir tree roots she used, scavenged from the big windstorm of, I think, 1995 (remember, I'm not getting any younger), had, over the years, started to do what Mozart and Beethoven did after they died, which is decompose (sorry), so new steps were needed well before I realized it.
Fortunately, someone else realized it far enough in advance that when a eucalyptus of ours needed to come down, Marcia had the arborists cut it down and leave it whole. I then cut the tree down into 2- to 4-foot logs to later be used as stairs (and, to be honest, I'd completely forgotten I'd even done this; did I mention my age?). Logs that I complained about messing up our yard (have I mentioned I'm a little on the compulsive side?). Logs that she knew would at some point make a great set of steps.
Make that two sets.
First, she used longer lengths of the tree for steps leading down from the steps off our deck to our sunken, crushed-rock patio.
Then she used the shorter portions for steps to help navigate the backyard from the lawn's edge down past the fire pit and to the raised vegetable bed.
Those were the ones that replaced the 17-year-old root steps, and when we removed those, it was sobering (not that either of us had been drinking, mind you) to see just how little of those roots was left. They were really nothing more than hollow shells, and it was amazing that they were still holding up the ground behind them.
To get more life out of these new steps, we (the royal we here, because it was Marcia's idea) decided to put a coat of deck sealant on them first. Then, after I had done the sealing, to make sure they weren't going anywhere for a while, Marcia drilled holes in them and I pounded rebar through the holes deep into the earth.
Will they last forever? Of course not. Marcia's guess, a very educated one, is about five to 10 years, depending on the kind of wood used.
But when you dress them up with some vegetation and some hardscape -- we went to several rock yards and, of course, one thing led to another and before we knew it, the couple of rocks we needed to accessorize the steps grew to more than 600 pounds, which our son Chris helped Marcia place around the stairs to make them look as if they'd always been there -- they make attractive, functional additions to the yard.
And keep me from doing my old man fall.
So now, here are the steps to making the steps, with a big assist from contractor John Stone of JP Stone Contractors:
1.
Find, or cut, logs that are about 6 to 10 inches in diameter and fairly straight.
2.
Cut wood to desired width for your stairs.
3.
Let the wood dry. How long varies depending on the type of wood and where it's stored, but in our case, we waited several months.
4.
Peel the bark.
5.
Seal with deck sealant.
6.
Drill 1/2-inch diameter holes -- about 6 inches from the ends -- with a drill bit that is long enough to go through the entire log. If your log is 2 feet or less in length, you'll need two holes. For longer logs, add a hole for every 1 foot in length (so a 4-foot log would have four holes).
7.
Dig a trough in the ground for the log, about one-third the height of the diameter of the log.
8.
Place a small amount of crushed rock in the trough, then place the log in the trough and level it.
9.
Hammer 18-inch lengths of 1/2-inch diameter rebar into the pre-drilled 1/2-inch holes.
10.
Backfill behind the step/log about one-third the height of the step. You should have an S curve that will help stabilize the log (see illustration).
11.
Fill in between the steps with quarter-10 crushed rock to finish grade.
12.
With your finished grade, the steps should be between 5 inches to 7 inches high (the riser) and you should have 18 inches between each riser (the tread).
PHOTOS AND ILLUSTRATION BY MARCIA WESTCOTT PECK
Marcia Westcott Peck is a landscape designer (pecklandscape.com) and Dennis Peck is not. He is the editor of The Oregonian's Living section, which is a good thing for him, because if he actually had to use his hands for anything other than typing, it would not be pretty.