It’s 6.5 because we actually worked on both Friday night & Saturday to get the project done!

So what did you do on Friday night? We played with cement!

We mixed up some stucco to apply the scratch coat over the metal lath on the new column.

You would never know that the column wasn’t always there.

We applied the final stucco coat under the Kitchen window which will be inaccessible under the track.

Lastly on Friday, we patched the masonry under the stairs and put the dryer vent through the wall… We don’t plan on being back here for a long time.

Saturday morning started with laying out and cutting out the stair stringers. If you don’t have fancy stair gauges (like us) that attach to your framing square, try this trick of clamping a board to your square at the rise & run measurements to make a perfect template!

And once you cut out one stringer, use it as a template to mark out the rest of the them. Here they all are, cut & being installed.

Before closing the stairs in we had to put our dryer vent through to the outside. It use to blow right into the porch area so this will help the area stay a little cleaner.

For the treads and riser, we used some salvaged oak flooring from Kelly’s Dad.

Because Kelly is currently painting the living room we were kicked out of the house with all saws, and since I don’t want to carry the table saw through the house I set up on the garden side. Besides the heat it was a nice day out. I ripped down the boards for the treads to be right widths & to allow for drainage.

And here the steps are all done!

Next up was the planter box.

We lined it with some left over rubber membrane and glue that Bill had. The glue of course stunk and is highly flammable.

Once glued down we clamped to rubber until it sets up. This will keep muddy water from dripping out everywhere; there are drains at both ends.

And up it went (we still need to trim the rubber). Lastly we finished up the hardware. We installed a stay roller at the ground in the center and stops at the ends.

We installed a keyed interlocking deadbolt at the end to secure the gate and allow access from the outside if we come home up the alley.

So this ‘quick project’ is now substantially complete! We just need to paint & plant.