Stairway To Heaven

What does a soon to be divorced woman do with her visiting friend and their four kids for entertainment? Build front steps of course. 

We haven't had steps in the front of our house for four years. We had a porch built and somehow the steps just never happened. Life gets away from you and then your husband cheats on you and wants a divorce and steps don't seem like much of a priority. That is until the mail lady comes with a package and she strides up your charming brick walkway arriving at the edge of your porch and then she looks around perplexed. Am I supposed to levitate to gain access to this domicile, she thinks? She tosses the package on the porch and thinks these assholes should really get some front steps and then she stomps back along the path to nowhere. I'm only guessing at this scenario but from the angry way my mail lady races up and down our dead-end street and the speed that she whips her car around I'm guessing that going postal isn't too far from her realm of possibility. 

My friend and I wondered if we should consult YouTube on how to build steps. Nah, we'd rather just wing it so with our high heeled flip flops and sunglasses for safety goggles, we plugged in the table saw and we were off and running. We tried one method that we were convinced was genius. We finished building the steps and placed them against the front of the house. My daughter tried them out. Up she climbed and then she turned around to come down. 'There's a problem here,' she said. Somehow the top step overhung the bottom step so much that it was nearly non-existent. Instead of building steps we had built more of a ladder for the front porch.

After cursing and laughing and saying yeah, we should have checked YouTube, we had two choices - say screw it and give up or start over. My friend and I have done many projects over the years (wall mounting tvs, hanging closet organization systems) and we have never admitted defeat. So we ripped everything apart and started again. 

The second attempt went much more smoothly and with scrap pieces of wood from the shed, we managed to cobble together some steps. After looking at them critically, we agreed that the steps are too narrow and they need to be stained but with a few strategic shrubs, you might be able to overlook the fact that they were built by two stubborn blondes with limited experience in using a power tool that could maim you. And as a bonus to the finished steps we still have all of our appendages attached. All fingers and toes accounted for. We may each lose a toenail but that's a small price to pay for one less reason for your mail lady to hate you. 

Who needs a husband when you have a best friend that says fuck it, plug in the table saw and we'll figure out how it works.