New Stairs!

When we moved into our house five years ago, it was abundantly clear that the primary driving factor for where the previous owners had located things could be summed up in one word: convenience.

Nothing was square to anything else, nothing was intentionally aligned with the road, the path of the sun, or pretty much anything else you might logically expect. The randomness of their choices was perhaps most glaringly evidenced by a set of stairs leading down from the driveway to the front yard... that aligned with exactly nothing. It wasn't near the garage, or the front door, or anything. 

The front porch, just after completion.

After trekking through the driveway and yard back and forth every time for a while (there were bigger fish to fry first, as anyone who has ever moved or bought a house knows), we made a point that first year of moving those stairs across the yard to line up as closely as possible to both the garage and the house.

For five years, our impromptu adjustment held. But the stairs weren't particularly well built to begin with, and in the last year or so they've started to show their age in ways that leaned toward the unsafe. This year, replacing them was a priority. Because there are so many code-related details involved in stairs, it wasn't worth doing it ourselves. We called the guy who built our beautiful front deck, and he agreed to make us a matching stairway.

Our gorgeous new stairs (and one of my furry supervisors, who approves this post.)

The local shale and river stone walkway connecting the stairs to the front porch.

It was supposed to take one day. It took three very long ones. But, in the end, the results were perfect: safe, lovely, and pretty much designed to last forever.

And, with that, the last of our major house projects are done for the year. Which is good, because goodness knows there's enough else going on!!  : )