Stairs

[pasithea]

This photo might not show it too well but the stairs leading up to our house are really broken. Some of the steps are only half wide, others are tilted and they're all uneven and a few have loose rock. In a week or two we're going to start working on replacing them. After the cut are various charcoal drawings I've made as some concept art for how the new stairs might look. The retaining walls need to be replaced too but we'll probably do that next year.

What we want out of new stairs is for them to be solid, level, and evenly spaced but still fit into the landscape but we'd also like to keep cost down. So we're probably going to do a compromise hybrid design with artificial stone supports (like Calstone) with slabs of rock on top of them.

We're also going to do some crazy stuff like... Add landings, and finally some switchbacks. This way the climb up to the house is easier on guests and there are places to stop plus you move through the scenery a little slower. At the major landing(s), we're going to put small interest things (some boulders to sit on, a bird feeder, that sort of thing) to create outdoor spaces to chat that are not the porch (and eventual deck)

A few concept sketches behind the cut.




First sketch, focusing mostly on the landing and a sort of badly-rendered concept for a future retaining wall.

I like this design. The stairs move side to side but the stair widths are uniform all the way up. This makes the fastest daily ascent/descent but is not quite as zen as what I think we really want.

The basics of Stacey's design. Eventually part of that retaining wall would go away and the stairs would land at the parking spot instead of facing a wall. She suggested doing sweeps back and forth up the side of the hill but I'm not sure I like this. Depends on how many degrees each sweep is and how much width difference there is between one side of the stairs and the other. Does however flow nicely and accomplishes our goals. I think this is also the hardest design to implement. Requires the greatest masonry skill.

A variant take I made on Stacey's design. It's a little less elegant but seems easier to build and stair widths stay uniform across each step (important to me when carrying loads) Definitely not quite as nice a design.



Other details: I think we have agreed on doing a sort of split-rail fence for the hand rail going up the stairs. If we can find long bows from trees, we'll probably use those as the rails rather than actual split rails. We've talked about seeing if we can get ahold of some manzanita. It cracks too much to use for furniture but would be nice for this and it's a local material so it would blend in the design more, which I like.

Some of the widths and heights are not drawn to scale. The technical drawings are Stacey's job once we've settled on a design because she's taken drafting classes and I... have a strange allergy to using rulers. :)

Any input/design ideas/etc would be much appreciated. :)