So it was time.  At the end of the last post, the stoop was looking like:

It was getting there.  Really, all I had to do was paint, but if you know me - I......hate.....painting!  Stain on the floorboards and two coats of B-I-N primer, and two coats of paint later, here it was (of course Linus supervised throughout):

Oh, just a quick step backward - here's the stoop without the doors.  As you can see the mower and some other things are stored below:

What you can't see here is that the storage runs the entire length of the back porch, more storage is always good!  Anyway, I showed you in the first post about the stoop that I had built the doors, so all that was left was to paint them (of course - ugh) and hang them.  

Aaahhhhhh, so much better - or was it?  The pad outside the stoop looked like, well Ma will be reading this so - it looked like (insert your own word).  I hate when you do a project, stand back and it looks nice and then the surrounding area brings it all down.  The area outside the stoop has always been a problem-area.  Back in the day, we even used an old rubber welcome mat:

Off to Lowes!  First I graded the area, then laid down some recycled landscape fabric to try to keep some of those horrid weeds down!  Then I had to even out and neaten up some things with a little concrete (no precision work here!):

Then it was just a matter of putting in the pavers:

Nice huh?  All done yeah?  Ooooof course not.  Look at this:

Do you see it?  See on the right side of the picture?  I have always hated how there was a veritable cliff down to the pavers, it's always been like that.  So, once again I had to do something about it.  So I thought I would just put a small slope leading up to the pad to make it neater and easier to mow.  

Then just a little grass seed...of course when you have this guy - 

there's no way in the world grass would grow unless one took a bit of precautionary measure:

And THAT should be the end of the Back Stoop project.  Maybe.  I hope.  The beauty shot:

And a Before/After shot:

And finally, a few project bonus shots - just for posterity:

I really hated this 2-rail look:

So I took it apart and started over:

This fine piece of equipment was installed in 1994..

Same manufacturer but what's the odds this one will last as long?  And you know how one thing leads to another?  Well, I thought I might as well change the kitchen faucet (this I did myself),  Here's the most boring picture ever taken - the old faucet:

Believe-it-or-not, this simple job took several hours and three trips to the hardware store.  When I first installed the new faucet, I used the old supply hoses.  Big mistake, they leaked terrible...must have been all the torque applied to loosen them.  I shouldn't have tried to cheap out and just picked up a couple new ones when I got the faucet!

Then, you see that length of pipe?  The one with the big hole in it?  Well, that's the drain pipe.  And that hole is where the dishwasher was once attached.  In working under the sink, I must have leaned on that line and broke it clean off.  To the store!  

Anyway, that job is done.  Here's an equally boring pic:

Okay - 'til next time!

I think that was toward the end of the "beige" years, and I also think that was when we were changing 173 from the white-and-green theme to white-and-brown.  I think.  Either way, we were pretty pleased with the look at the time.  If you look closely in the back by the old fence, you can see the remnants of the  old wooden wheelbarrow that came with the house.  Obviously the last picture there was in the fall, and we had bought a bale of hay and pumpkins for that fall-feeling.  Good times.

That beige wasn't paint, it was a semitransparent stain from Behr.  It looked really crisp but within a couple years it was looking pretty worn.  Besides that, I had shingled the back porch exterior so we decided to go with a dark brown - this time it was paint.

Once again, we were pretty pleased.  But, that stoop had to be painted every year, and the winter and salt were brutal on the decking.  

And of course, 173's color scheme has changed so the brown just doesn't cut it anymore!

On top of that, the railings had really loosened, and the stoop as a whole was just kind of embarrassing.

Aaaand...it was time.  So off to Lowes and $50 later I picked up this belt sander:

I had an old Craftsman belt sander, but no matter what I did I couldn't keep the belt aligned.  So I did (minimal) research and found that this sander had some auto-mechanism that kept the belt aligned, good enough for me!  And really, it did a nice job:

The next step was putting on new steps.  All these years and I didn't know the steps were free-standing!  That made it much easier to work on them.  

One of the things I really wanted to do was save the stringers if at all possible.  It was:

The stringers were in pretty good shape, just one part was a little punky so I married a little piece of pressure treated 2x4 - just in case.

As is my wont, before doing all this I did a good bit of research, and read somewhere that putting tar paper on the stringer treads was a good idea.  Of course I always have some lying around so...

Then it was just a matter of putting on the steps and risers:

I know the right hand side of the treads are hanging over a bit too much, but that really was intentional.  The idea was it would help (no delusions here - just help) keep some of the moisture away from that bottom of the stringer, and give a little more space for plants (you'll probably see that next summer).

Then came the posts and rails.  Before I get there, I gotta show you these things:

They cost about $7 per pair, and they go here:

They make railings so incredibly secure, cut installation time down, and saved me from splitting the rails when screwing them to the posts.  So, I first went with a 2-rail look:

After getting them all installed, I stood back, snapped a couple pics and thought it just looked sparse, and with that much post sticking up, just looked weird.  So I rearranged and added a rail, and I think it came out much better:

That left the doors (with the lattice).  There's about 4 feet of headroom under the stoop, and about the same under the entire back porch, which gives us a lot of storage.  The framing around the doors is good, so I just sanded that, but the doors themselves were showing their age structurally.  So I decided to make new doors.  This was a fun project, and afforded me one of the few times I actually got to use my Kreg tool:

I'm sure I'm not the only one this has happened to...I ran out of the "proper" length of Kreg screws, and not wanting to take the time to go to the store just for that - I used a slightly longer screw - dumb.  I ended up having a few screws come out the front of the frames, so I had to change them, and fix the front (and while I was at it I caulked the joints):

Here they are (before fixing the screws):

Now I'm at a standstill.  The pressure treated wood needs to dry a little before staining and painting, and I thought I'd put the new lattice in after painting.  All of which means it will be a couple weeks before the project is complete, but for now...great progress!

Bonus Picture:

Always the fingers!