By now you’ve seen our screened in porch makeover and how we antiqued the door. Mike and I must have gone in and out the screened in porch door several hundred times during our renovations. Each time we did, we would make a little noise. Not a good noise – more of a grunt – like we were in pain. Do you know why? Well, because we were in pain from having to climb up and down into the structure without a step! I mean, it was a 2 foot climb up and down EVERY time. That’s hard on your knees when you’re our age – ha! ha! We finally said, “we have got to build a concrete step.”
Mike has built hundreds of steps in his career. This was my first one. So, I was ultra-excited to tackle this project. (I think my knees were even more excited). We first started by building forms out of wood. Our step was going to need to be fairly tall, so we started out with a 2” x 12” board. Mike cut it to the desired length of our step which was around 4 feet long. You can see in the pic below that Mike is holding up the level . This indicates how the step needs to slope in order to be level.
As I’ve shared before, our house lot slopes towards the water. This creates it’s own set of building challenges. Our step was going to need to be only about 6 inches tall on one end. But, it needed to be 12 inches tall on the other. To accomplish this, Mike cut the 2” x 12” board at an angle. Then he checked it with the level to ensure that we would have a nice level step.
Next, he cut the side boards for the form of the step. He used a 2” x 6” board on the short end. He used a 2” x 12” board on the tall end. We wanted our step to be about 16” wide. So, the 2” x 6” and 2” x 12” side boards were cut to be 16” long.
The side boards were then attached to the front board using an impact driver and screws. These boards made the “form” for what would soon be our much needed step.
Instead of filling a portion of the step with dirt and rebar (which is typically done), Mike decided that we would fill it with rocks from our property. (We have a LOT of rocks – rocks of all sizes). So, we went rock hunting and filled up a portion of our form with the rocks. To keep the form steady while we were pouring in concrete, we also secured the form with 4 wooden stakes.
Next, we moved on to mixing up the concrete. Since this was only going to be one step, we mixed it the old fashioned way. That means with a wheelbarrow and hoe. We used 50 lb bags of Quikrete High Strength Concrete Mix. We mixed 2 bags at a time in the wheelbarrow. Believe me, you don’t want to mix more than 2 bags at a time because the concrete becomes too hard to work with. Nobody’s got time for that!!
I really liked mixing the concrete. It reminded me of making a cake or brownies. We had to make sure that the concrete mix on the bottom got scraped up to the top. The hoe was really useful for digging down to accomplish this. We ended up using 5-6 bags of concrete mix. We mixed it in 3 different batches since we mixed in 2 bag batches. After mixing the concrete, I have now become the “official” concrete mixer of the family. Since this post, we have since had the need to mix a few more batches of concrete. Of course, I have enthusiastically volunteered to mix. (I’m adding another skillset to my toolbelt!)
Oh, and also, DO NOT, and I repeat DO NOT wear anything that you’re fond of when mixing concrete. That is, unless you want those clothes to become your “official” concrete clothes. Let’s just say that I am now the proud owner of “official” concrete clothes!! I never thought I’d say that in my life (ha! ha!).
After we poured the concrete in the form, Mike had to immediately “screed” the concrete. I actually had to Google that because I wasn’t sure if that was even a word. Sometimes Mike makes up words – don’t tell him I said that). But, he was correct and it can actually be used as a verb. It means to “bring the surface of the concrete to a grade.” o accomplish this, he used a board that we had. He ran it across the top to tamp down the aggregate and make for a smoother surface.
As the concrete dries, the water in the concrete evaporates and rises towards the surface. You must continually trowel the concrete before it dries in order to smooth the surface. This will give you the look that you want. There is no set rule on when or how often you do this. It is dependent upon so many external factors (temperature outside, humidity etc…). In our case, Mike troweled the step for the first time approximately 30 minutes into drying. He used a metal concrete trowel for this.
Overall, Mike ended up troweling the step 3-4 times. I failed as my job of photographer to document this step with photos. Honestly, I was getting bored by this point – let me tell ‘ya, watching concrete dry is not that exciting. However, I do know that there was one final step to his process. He used a broom (yep, a regular house broom). Hopefully, it wasn’t one of my good brooms. He ran it over the concrete and put a light broom stroke on it. Mike wanted our step to have some texture (not totally smooth) so that it would not be slick when it rained.
We let the step dry overnight and I could hardly wait until it was time to remove the forms. I felt like I was waiting on the Amazon delivery man to deliver my package so I could open it and see my surprise inside. (ha! ha!)
The following day, we took the stakes out of the ground and removed the screws from the wood forms. Then it was as simple as just pulling the wood off of the concrete.
The step turned out just as we expected! I even got to be the first one to step on it and enter the screened in porch. I’m pretty sure my knees were smiling when I took that first step. Who knew that I could get so much satisfaction out of something as simple as building a concrete step!!
