When we moved into this house, our back steps were covered in old, rotting wood. We removed the wood when we moved in, and underneath were concrete steps that weren't perfect, but were fine.
Earlier this summer Matt noticed that the bottom step was separating from the rest of the stairs, and they were all sloped towards the house which meant that when it rained, water was seeping into the foundation. We proceeded to have 4372 conversations about what to do about these steps, including many technical details about water flow and slope and the mechanics of stairs and many other things I don't necessarily understand.
All I know is that at one point Matt threw out the idea of removing the whole staircase, and then instead of putting in a new one, creating a "gently rolling hill" out the back door and down to the patio/lawn. I told my mom that idea and she said, "Did you remind him that he has a mother-in-lawn, and she isn't going to be rolling out the door and down to the patio?"
So, back to the drawing board.
In the end Matt decided to caulk the cracks and just replace the bottom base step. A few weeks ago he took a sledgehammer to it, and then meticulously built a base for the new bottom step while I said encouraging things like, "Don't you think we should just hire someone?"
You know how people say you never use math in real life? They've never lived at our house.
Matt dubbed this weekend concrete weekend. He watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials about how to pour concrete, and then hit Home Depot as it opened on Saturday and came home with a concrete mixer and the last of eighteen eighty pound bags of concrete. He'd been buying it at little at time so he didn't overload the bed of his truck, because for those of you playing along with the math at home, that's 1440 pounds of concrete.
(I just said to Matt, "How much concrete did the step take? Eighty pounds?")
I knew there were eights involved.
Here's what you need to know about concrete mixing. It is no easy task. Especially when it is 85 degrees and 97% humidity and you have no shade, and oh, you've never done it before.
After a few hours the base was poured. The concrete mixer had to go back to Home Depot but the concrete needed to be "floated." I drove the mixer back to HD in Matt's truck while he stayed back and floated. Matt has an old F-150 and while I do love being up high, it is really large and much heavier than my tiny Ford Focus, which can stop on a dime.
Especially when you're hauling a concrete mixer in the back.
Anyway I got it there and home and parked in the road because ain't nobody got time to park that big old boat in the driveway. We were going to grill for dinner but decided at the last minute to go out. We couldn't decided what restaurant to go to so we settled on my personal favorite, Bertucci's. I have very sophisticated culinary taste.
As we pulled into the Bertucci's parking lot, I pressed the button to close my window and heard what can only be described as the terrible sound of glass falling and a loud crunch. We parked and Matt inspected at the window and quickly determined that some sort of internal mechanism was busted.
That's a technical term.
We enjoyed our dinner along with added suspense of whether or not someone was going to steal our car, then drove home with the wind in our hair.
I asked Matt if he wanted to cover the window in plastic overnight but he said no. I had a terrible coughing fit around 5:00 this morning and went downstairs to get a drink of water. When I got back to bed Matt asked me if it was raining. I said no, but I guess he didn't believe me because he peeked out the window, and then I could not believe what he said. Matt does not curse, ever.
If he is really, really, REALLY mad he says "rat's patootie."
But what came out of his mouth at 5:00 this morning would make a sailor blush. He leaped out of bed only to return a minute later and report back that it wasn't raining, it was just condensation on the window.
He watched some more YouTube tutorials and then removed the door panel of his truck, only to discover the window regulator was all knotted. Or something. All I know is that it needed a new regulator and now it has one.
This weekend was brought to you by YouTube tutorials.
And math.
And math.
7 comments:
I always end up laughing when someone curses that doesn't normally let it fly. It sounds so foreign out of their mouth.
We are in concrete throws ourselves right now. The hubs wants his new barn concreted & I'm like, SAVE ALL THE MONEY - DONT DO IT. But he's going to do it - so he suggested he'd do it himself to save some money & I'm like, Nope - forget it - spend the money. it aint worth all the drama of life of him doing it.
I love that fact that Matt takes on every job himself and seems to accomplish everything by youtube!! I would imagine it drives you nuts on occasion though. haha
Someone should be filming your life. It's always an adventure :) Very impressive that Matt took care of everything himself. I do not have that ability AND I don't have that kind of confidence in Kyle. Hahaha.
My husband used to have an even older Ford F-150 that was manual shift. I could barely drive it. And then there was the time I had to do all these errands to the feed store and so on and he neglected to tell me that if I put the parking brake on--which I did--it wouldn't disengage. And I couldn't figure out why the thing was driving so rough and I kept stalling out.
That truck was a workhorse, but only if someone else was driving it. I don't miss it.
Y'all need a reality show.
wow, all that in the same day aghhh. I can't believe you guys poured your own cement, that is quite a feat!
Show us the step!
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