Day 3 - The First Step

The First Step

Once the cut portions of our wood was finally dry, we were able to begin actually building the steps. Because we had some heavy rain prior to our being able to put the steps in, we covered the exposed soil with hay from a local feed store so the soil would not get washed away. Once I got it raked away, hubby roughly leveled the location for the first (bottom) step.

Prepping for the bottom step

When the area was relatively flat, we placed two of the three timbers from our soon-to-be u-shaped bottom step. We drilled a screw into the two timbers to keep them together, placed them again, and used play sand and a leveler to get it roughly level. We then took it up and added the third timber to complete the u-shaped step, and then with the play sand and leveler, we got the u-shaped bottom step laying perfect.

Getting the screw started

Drilling in the screw

Use play sand and a leveler to get it level

To discourage weeds from growing through our steps, we used a roll of landscape fabric to line the floor of each step. We thought it important to lift the step to get it under the timbers too.

Use landscape fabric to discourage weeds

Here is the bottom step all finished for this phase!

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