Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Watch That First Step...

gaping hole...

I've been planning for some time to rebuild the steps to the carport, at least since January. When I had concrete delivered, I put in the footings for the new stairs, but mentally the task has been on the "nice to have" list, not the "do sooner rather than later" or "do immediately" lists.

Last night, it took a big leap forward in priority. K and I took a walk around the block after dinner, and when we returned I stepped on to the landing at the top of the stairs...and kept going. I knew some parts were starting to get a little rotten, but it seems that was considerably further along than I thought. The ledger board that holds up one end of the boards for the landing was completely rotted. I dropped the 7 or 8 feet to the ground and landed on my back.

Today I'm sore, stiff, and with bruises aplenty, but no broken bones. Once I'm feeling a little more limber (and I'm past the current work deadline), I'll build a new set of stairs. Fortunately we have our neighbor's steps to use, but I have to admit I was a bit nervous walking on them at first after last night's excitement.

6 comments:

Todd - Home Construction Improvement said...

Glad you're just bruised...scary!

NV said...

OUCH! Glad it's not anything more serious. This is bad enough.

Unknown said...

Thanks. It was pretty scary, but more in hindsight. It happened so quickly I didn't have time to be scared then :-)

And I'm just glad if it had to happen to someone, it happened to me, and not my 80 year old mother-in-law or an elderly neighbor...

Kevin said...

wow.. the worst part about it has got to be knowing how bad it COULD have been. Looking forward to seeing the new ones go in.

Unknown said...

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Unknown said...

I didn't see contact info there. You can email gene at designsinlight.com.