Stairs to Nowhere

When you own an older vacation place, there are always projects to get done. This summer I dealt with the oldest one on the list: the stairs to nowhere (see photo). Despite getting what turned out to be a reasonable bid from a landscaper, I tackled the project myself.

In 2017 we hired a contractor to rebuild the back deck. Partway through the project, K’s brother made a design change to add a ramp along the south side of the house that connected to the rebuilt deck. As a refinement, without giving specifics, I asked the contractor to build a secondary set of stairs at the ramp end of the deck. Curiously he built them so that the bottom step ended about 14 inches above a steep slope that goes down to the beach. At that point, the deck project was over budget and the stairs were left that way.

In contrast, the primary stairs to access the deck are on the north side of the house and are safe, well designed, used daily, and connect to the main path to the beach.

The new ramp worked great and allowed K (my co-owner) to access the deck via a walker or wheelchair. The new stairs though were a waste of money. Their ending was so unsafe as to render them almost unusable. They either needed permanent caution tape across their entrance or removal. K called them the stairs to nowhere. The name stuck.

Since 2017 I have drawn up back-of-the-envelope plans every year for extending the stairs, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Lots of envelopes and no progress. That is, until this year.

In June a landscaper named Mateo and his crew did a job at my neighbor’s place. Their work looked professional, so I showed him the stairs to nowhere. His bid, which added additional landscaping-block steps and a safety post (not a railing), was for $1400. Nothing was written down, and it seemed high, so I took on the project myself.

As shown in the photo at the end of this post, I used the basic design the landscaper and I discussed plus added a railing. The hardest part? Well, at my age everything was hard. To start with I had to remove several old pre-ramp root-laced railroad-tie steps that had literally become part of the slope. Also difficult: positioning the 55-pound landscaping blocks, digging the railing post holes, pouring cement, and adding gravel to a lateral walkway that connects to the main path down to the beach.

Wisely I didn’t total the receipts for materials, nor did I keep close track of my labor. But I did do enough figuring to know now that the bid I got was fair. That’s all the detail I need.

The extension to the former stairs to nowhere isn’t pretty. But now that it’s in, I can at least call them the stairs to somewhere. Plus take them off the projects list.