Sixteen Tons

Okay, so we only moved 1 1/2 tons - about 3,000 pounds - of concrete, one sixty pound bag at a time. But the new front porch steps are done and lookin' mighty fine with their sexy new green-to-match-the-house-trim color and artful stone tile accents.

One thing about owning an older house - people just did things, well...differently back in the days before "This Old House" and Home Depot. In our case, they did the front step footing wrong, is what they did. We opened up the steps in August figuring on replacing a riser or two and found that the two middle joists had completely rotted away at the ground level. Which has understandable, since they were sitting on a couple of little concrete...um, thingies, would be the technical term. Some sort of goofy cast concrete ingots. ...WTF? And let's not even go into what was holding the front of the porch itself up...

So we spent the entire month of August going out the back of the house or through the cat-flap (guess who) while the front steps were in ruins. Poured an entire new slab to support the steps and porch. Poured a plinth to support the new joists. New joists, treads and risers and voila! Ze steps, she is finished!

Little Peeper really wanted to help, and was very sad that most of the work was for adults, not peepers. He did play in his "construction site", the dirt pile next to the hole that we dug out to form the slab (note the trip hazard he has left on the stairs).

He did a great job painting, though. Very excited, and had to announce to one and all that he was doing a great job painting with his grandparents...like I don't get enough of "What an adorable little boy! Is that your first grandchild?" from other adults. Rrrrr!

But what lovely steps. You can keep the moon over the terrace of the Sacre Coeur. I'll just sit on these here steps and watch the stars rise over North Portland...