Took Flight

We always say, and I shall repeat, "how fast time goes," or "where does the time go," and all other sentiments on time that age seems to stir within us. This winter, virtually snow-less and, by far, the warmest on record, helped make time ahead seem abundant. With the early onset of spring, the significantly early nursery opener date of April 8th (usually the second week of May), and so much to do and prepare for, time took flight.

The first week of March, warm and sunny, I was fixing and building, restoring and painting. I re-sided all that I could safely reach and the same went for painting, so we emptied our savings to hire out siding replacement and painting on the upper floors. My first project was to detach, dismantle, and dispose of three steps descending from the screened, back porch. New treads, new risers, re-engineered the original, 30 year old stringer attachment and raised a sunken landing made for a more solid exit. Although I re-used the old stringers, paint and new cedar treads made it look almost new. The beginning to a very busy spring to come.

Siding crew finishes what I could not -although I completed the lower part, at right.

With every project there were tangential projects -things we chose to live with that, once something adjacent is restored, look awful if left in a poor state. For our house, this was most often the granite rock and plastic edging. Rocks sank into the soil, ants and plants brought or created soil above the rock, edging warped, sunk or was cut by mowers. It's work anyone would avoid -physical labor of the most tedious kind. Move rocks, wash rocks, remove plants, add soil, replace fabric, dig in new edging, replace rocks, shake off crazed ants, swat mosquitoes.

2020 was a good year to address time-consuming projects -prior steps had no footings.

By late April, I was able to power-wash, repair, paint and install all remaining, under-porch latticework in the front and rear of the house. By mid-May, after years of living without, I constructed, painted, and attached two railings to the new, in 2020, south-side staircase I built to replace the dangerously rotted, completely unsupported old steps. The landing, a mishmash of limestone and concrete paver, was completed last fall and adjacent rock edging was renovated this spring.

 

An old project is finally complete with railings, mishmash landing and edging rehab.

Two major projects remained for June: grading and seeding of a drought-killed lawn (and its edging, of course) that became bare soil and weeds, and building new steps that descend from the north-side deck, rebuilt in 2016, to the vegetable garden. I chose to renovate the front lawn, first, in order to take advantage of coming rain, but it was also the bigger of the two projects. Rain it did, leading me to repeatedly seed, and stalling other outdoor projects. While it rained, I packed boxes, growing ever more frustrated with rain that, not long before, was welcome.

 

The earliest, newly seeded lawn grew in well. The latest, last seeding failed (not seen).

 

A brief dry spell let me repaint trim and paint post and rail of the front porch staircase.

When our realtor, John, stopped in to check on my progress, I watched him uneasily navigate the rickety "temporary" steps we'd been using to descend from the utility room deck to the garden. This convinced me I needed to forget the possibility of letting them go. Still, between rain and other demands, I continued to push off building a replacement.  There simply wasn't enough time.

We used these steps, built decades ago, for 8 years.

My priority had to be, at realtor request, to empty the house of all objects by June 21st. Monday through Thursday, beginning in June, I emptied furniture, packed books, removed art from walls for wrapping, all the while continuing to operate the nursery on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I spent several days accumulating and organizing objects for a yard sale to be held concurrently with nursery open hours. I hired a helping hand for this, yet, in the end, found it was an entirely fruitless enterprise given the fraction of objects eventually sold. I raked in about five hundred dollars, but I also paid the helper nearly four hundred. Not a good use of time or resources. With the looming deadline for delivering an empty house, I also tried, unsuccessfully, to get an estate sale company to sell off a hundred years of objects. They didn't find our things financially appealing or didn't have the time.

So I made the decision to hire a moving company to carry boxed items and furniture from the attic, second and first floors, as well as the basement into either the studio outbuilding (at the time filled with yard sale items and studio equipment) or a twenty-six foot truck. Anything remaining would be hidden in a closet or cabinet to render the house virtually empty. The items stored in the studio building would potentially be for sale while the truck-bound items would be shipped to a storage unit about one half hour to the west for safe keeping until a move date. Lucky, and quick with a deposit, I was able to secure six guys and a truck for the following Wednesday. The task then became tagging each item "truck" or "shed," and clearing the driveway of any remaining outdoor yard sale items to accept a large truck and organizing the studio to accept the majority of house's contents. That Wednesday, six guys worked eight hours to empty the house of large or heavy objects.

The following day, however briefly, I felt a sense of relief, even freedom. The attic was now empty of large objects, as was the second floor, but there were still many unpacked small items scattered about each floor. Each room generated its own contractor bag or two of trash, so I ordered a second dumpster. The dining room floor became the packing table and I hired a helper to wrap and box. Still, the empty house deadline of June 21 came and went, the listing of the house for sale continued to be kicked down the road and those steps were not built. 

With three thousand plants still in the nursery pen, I opened the nursery on July 4 and following days while continuing to package, hide or empty house contents. The attic was finally empty, as was the second floor -closets excepted. The dining room floor held an abundance of ceramic, art and otherwise fragile objects requiring packing and this occupied most of the remaining days. Although the basement continued to harbor items, I moved to clean it as if it was empty.

In that last week, before the open house showing scheduled for July 13th, at 11am, I was able to purchase materials and begin construction on the long overdue steps. The challenge was building a staircase of equal riser height between two fixed positions while using stock standard stringers -a convenience purchase that ultimately led to inconvenience. Off-the-shelf stringers have a rise of seven inches between steps, so I had to modify the stringers to fit evenly within a total rise of 26.5 inches. 

How is this done? First, divide 26.5 (the height of the deck) by the number of steps (4). The numerical result tells you the measurement (6 & 5/8th inches) of each riser. The problem comes with using off the shelf stringers, as they are always cut to 7 inches, the bottom rise excepted -this is cut to 6 & 3/4 inches. When treads are placed, this adds the thickness of the tread material to the bottom-most riser, so that it resolves to 6 & 3/4 inches plus 1 & 3/4 inches, or 8.5 inches -significantly higher than the 7 inch height of each center riser. 

For the upper-most riser, we measure from the deck surface down to the top of the next tread, below, revealing a riser height of only 5 inches! Wildly different heights between risers is against city code which allows only for a 3/8ths inch difference between steps. This is because differences above this number are potentially unsafe as our body intuits where to place our foot based on the last step taken. 

Three stringers and attached legs create "floating" steps unattached to the deck or sidewalk.

Time being short, I decided to cut the stringers' bottom edges down to about 5 & 1/4 inches to bring the bottom-most riser plus its tread thickness closer to seven inches. In doing this, I automatically extended the upper riser by the amount removed, so that the upper riser height is now closer to 5 & 3/4 inches -still way off from the needed 6 & 5/8ths needed to meet code. Now what? The only option left, aside from starting again with 2x12 boards to create new, custom stringers, is to plane off the necessary thickness from the top tread in order to increase top riser height. Doing so will reduce the 7 inch height of the riser below, so that each would need a bit of planing to stay within the 3/8ths inch code rule.

Time nor weather, however, was on my side. The torrential downpours began on Friday, but picked up on Saturday, lasting past 5pm. I had to hide my things, vacuum, clean, mow the now very wet grass and, still, my steps were not complete. Although treads were cut, they were not all attached, and riser boards (concealing the open space) needed cutting, painting and fastening. The realtor then added an additional appointment for 10am that Sunday, so I lost an hour, and gave up. 

An evening call with a friend help set priorities. Instead of fretting, I spent three hours on Saturday evening, until twilight, moving hundreds of pounds of scrap metal (what, I didn't mention the scrap metal?) scattered outside the studio, in like piles, into my van. With little light left, I decided to do something despised by mower and grass alike -cut the wet grass. There was no way to complete the steps -I would attach the loose treads in the morning and offer a warning for safety.

On Sunday I woke early, as always in a Minnesota summer, to begin hiding my things, remove the two van seats that became my temporary in-house furniture, vacuum, and clean. It was 9:45am and I was preparing to leave, as is required for these showings, when the text came from realtor John that the 10 o'clock had canceled. I answered "Great!" which I do not think he was expecting. "Now I can finish the steps." There was some sun, finally, so I cut the riser planks, painted and leaned them toward the rising sun to hasten drying. At 10:50am, a few minutes shy of the open house, I attached the nearly dry riser planks to the stringers and greeted the realtor. I never did get to plane the treads to come closer to meeting code, but I reasoned to myself that these were only temporary, anyway, and way better than the steps they replaced. 

Completed, although uneven, last set of steps.

I went to the neighbors to spend the next three hours sitting on their porch, had an iced coffee, then a beer, in succession. Waiting out the open house slumped in an Adirondack chair was all I could muster. As 2pm rolled around, I headed back to the homestead. The realtor was on his way out -his job done. No offers, no bites, they like the land, not the house -absolutely what I had anticipated and a hell ton of work ended up feeling anti-climactic.

It is fitting that this staircase, the last of five I've rebuilt, should be the project made a decade, nearly to the day, after the first set of steps I had built for my father in law, Rex, just three months before he died. Rebuilding his home's primary staircase was as much about showing him that things would be in good hands after he was gone as it was about necessity, that it was okay for him to let go. Ten years on, however, it's not only okay, but necessary for us to let go of this house and maybe his wishes, so that Betsy and I can put our lives back into our good hands.