We Have Deck Stairs!

Previously the second story deck off our kitchen had no exit. If you wanted to get down to the backyard you had to come back into the house and either go through the basement (so cheery), or out the front door and walk all the way around the house. Who planned that?!
Well, not any more!!
Now you can go out the slider from the kitchen or sunroom,


down the new stairs


and there you are right in the yard (Our sad, sad, two level, totally un-landscaped back yard.. Lot's more work needs to be done here...)


So much better... It even gave us a much better place for our composting barrel! (It used to be at the front of the house by the garage entrance.) Bonus!

The interesting thing is that the contractor didn't bother with a poured cement base for the uprights. He said that since our yard is almost pure sand (true) that we didn't need to worry about frost heaving since the ground won't hold enough water to freeze anyway, so the supports don't need to go so deep.

He pretty much dug a hole, stuck in a cement block and used that as the base.
If that really is all that needs to be done for a base, then putting in a lower level deck at the foot of the stairs is going to be way easier than I thought it would be. Which is great, because I can TOTALLY do that myself! Ok, well not all by myself, I'll need at least one burly man to help with the heavy lifting... but by brother already volunteered himself and possibly one other fireman buddy for the price of beer and pizza! SWEET!