Hi friends!
Making more backyard progress. Today I'm sharing how I built a corner deck stair on our ground level deck. When we purchased our home, it had 2 sets of stairs on the deck - and neither one of them were great. Here's what I mean:
We have saggy deck stairs sinking into the ground, and a weedy paver patio with some different stairs on the other side of our deck. It was not great.
I had the idea to build a longer corner step that would flow better into our yard! Here is how I did it.
First things first I purchased all my lumber. Yours might vary depending how high up your step needs to be etc, but here is a general guide.
I purchased:
8 2x6x8
8 2x8x8
7 6x8 deck boards
You will also need:
Square pavers 12x12 to go every 16" around the base
Paver base - I ended up using 7 bags
Screws - I used 3" deck screws
It's actually really simple to build!
I determined how long I wanted each side of the step to be. Then I created the boxes below the width I needed each step to be. I determined I wanted my step to be 2 deck boards wide, so I made each box 11" wide. These boxes are just creating the frame for your step. I used the 2x6 boards to create these boxes. I cut a middle piece for each frame 8" wide. Then I screwed them into the middle of the frame every 16".
Once your boxes are built, you need to rest them on the cement pavers. But first - it's important to put paver base down and make sure all the pavers are level with each other all the way around. To do this you put down paver base, tamp it with a tamper, and then put down another paver. If it's not level, either add or take away paver base, tamp it again, and recheck. I made sure a paver would line up with the middle of the studs from my boxes, so every 16".
Next - I set the boxes on the pavers and secured it to the deck with more screws!
In the photo below you can see I test fit the deck boards to make sure we were on track! After that I screwed in the deck boards into the boxes every 16".
The next and final step was securing the fascia (2x8") to cover the pavers below. This helps make it look finished as well.
I opted to miter the corners as well. You can see it added a bit more width to the step!
I'm super happy with how these turned out. They feel sturdy! We will end up putting pea gravel around the base of the steps and staining it all one color too!
Until next time!