A Proper Step

Steps to our secret garden

A few months ago, we posted about some rock steps. That next day we decided to cover our retaining wall with veneer rock. I know, kinda out of order. Naturally, the rock steps didn't really look good anymore. And honestly, I don't remember why we did them anymore. Back to drawing board.

A new solution.

I didn't want your traditional deck steps you see everywhere, but I didn't want to make anymore hardscaping either. Also, we preferred changing materials from element to element for visual contrast and variety. After some research, railroad ties became our favorite material choice for the steps. Cheap, durable and characteristic.

B and I considered several sketches on the computer before we decided on the final design. We were worried that the steps would cover up too much of our pretty new wall, so we tapered each course, starting 8' wide on the bottom to 4'. Each step is 8.5" in rise, and 12" in run.

Stacked box style steps

Ties are really, really heavy. Like 100 lbs each. So once you nail a couple together to make a box, they are nearly impossible to move. This makes them very stable, but also super hard to manipulate. Once the bottom step was all pinned together with 12" stakes, I filled the middle of the box with gravel, and covered to top of the hole in brick pavers. You can see (through the snow) a course of bricks peeking out.

Paver bricks fill the back 3" of the first two treads

Overall, I am happy with the results. The project took much more time and effort than I planned. Cutting and drilling the ties was nearly impossible and very messy. The hope with projects like this is that we only have do them once. Fingers crossed.

We literally finished this project yesterday evening. Our first snow came overnight. Good timing?