Transcription
Today, I'm going to show you the absolute easiest way to create beautiful backyard hillside steps that absolutely anyone can do. No fancy tools needed, no expert skills needed. Today is going to be the day that you're going to learn the easiest and coolest way to make the beautiful backyard steps. Oh [ __ ] we are now cooking with gasoline. Where the hell did my other steak go? This is an easy project, remember? So, if you've been putting off this landscaping project, today's the day. Let's get into it. All right.
In order to figure out how many steps you're going to need, how long of a space you're working with, it's simple. There's a lot of stair calculators. Just type that into Google or Chad GBT. But in our situation, we're using we're working with a 9 ft uh height, which is the total rise. And we entered what the steps will be. Minimum is 10 in. And you can make them as much as you want, depending on how much space you're working with. Entered all our information in. And that tells us that our total run here is roughly 17 feet. But we need a landing here first in order to start our steps. That's what is the base of the entire step itself. I'm going to have to get a little bit of elbow grease in here, break some of this old dirt apart, get a nice clean flat spot, and then we can start talking about building that landing. Let's get into it.
[Music] [Music] putting in that sweat equity. You know what I mean? You can take that to the bank. This looks like a solid base to work with in a little 4 48x 48 section and looking good. We know one thing's for sure. There's going to be a ton of water here. There's going to be a ton of weeds. So, we're going to prevent some of those things. This is a weed barrier. We're going to run it from the top all the way down and that will keep any uninvited plants from coming through. Told you so far this is pretty dang easy. It's basically a craft. Now, I don't want to get too carried away with the this weed barrier cuz God knows what's going to happen over there. I'm going to probably have to move a little bit of dirt to make sure everything clears. So, I'm going to put the stakes in here cuz there's going to be a walking path. Roll it up. Keep it only stapled as we go just in case we need to fold something back. Move some dirt around. Put it back in place. Just thinking ahead. You don't want to be caught with your pants down in a corner again. Oh [ __ ] Harry, I've reached the top. Harry, I've reached the top.
[Music] All right, we're working with very basic material. This is a 4x6 pressuretreated lumber. pressure treat. It just means that it could it has all the stuff injected inside of it to make sure that it withstands any kind of rot that would happen over the years. We're going to just make a nice little C here. We're going to secure them from the front just using lag bolts. These are about 6in lag bolts. It'll go all the way through. Hold them two together. We're going to put the base down first and I'm going to show you what we're going to do next. She's a big old girl. Fun fact, pressuret treated lumber weighs more when it's wet, less when it's dry. We got to make sure the sucker is leveled. This is your base. This is your foundation. This is your chi, your chakra. We got to make sure everything is leveled cuz going forward, if this is out of whack, the rest of our steps will be out of whack. You guys ready to see some movie magic? Check this out. Dang, that's leveled. Oh, so is that. What? And that all just with shoveling. I made sure to do a test fit before I showed you guys this on camera. Now, my first rodeo. Not making a fool of myself yet. There's going to be plenty of time for that.
[Music] Oh, look. I found my safety glasses. Thanks, Ben.
[Music] 22 24s, 148. Uh, if you buy 8ft sticks, it'll be exactly the right amount to do one step. One stick is roughly around $30. So, you can do your own math calculation of if you need five or you need 20 like us. We are now cooking with gasoline. Make sure this is in hindsight. Get yourself a string. Though you can eyeball it, the last thing you want to do is be done with your steps. Look from the bottom of the hill and they're just going sideways. It'll make your life a whole lot easier. And that's just to see your rough direction. The real alignment is going to happen here. As long as it sits on top of this bottom piece and it's straight and flush with it, you're good to go, brother. This is the fun part. We're going to use an augur bit. Basically, a long ass bit/ inch. And then you're going to buy from Home Depot pre-cut already 2ft pieces of 1/2-in rebar. We're going to drive them, I don't know, I'll call it maybe 12 in off this edge. And what's going to do is it's going to tie each step to the previous step going forward. And then when it punches out towards the ground, it's going to go into the ground, keeping this thing from sliding out. God, that would be annoying if this thing ever slid out because of like a mudslide or something. That'd make a for a killer thumbnail, though.
[Music] [Music] I could never be a blacksmith. My arthritis would kick in.
[Music] Where the hell did my other steak go?
[Music] Of course, it's right here where I put it always. I promise going forward it's going to be a lot easier. That one gave me some trouble because the stake also hit the very bottom landing. That's what was so hard. I got to catch my breath, man. Don't show people your weakness. This is an easy project. Remember
[Applause] boom, baby.
[Music] Here's something you got to be watching out for as you're going forward. We know that this is all going to be leveled side to side as we did with the base. But, however, there's still plenty of rooms to screw up. Uh, when you put your top piece on, make sure that the back end is not lifted whatsoever, whether it's a rock or dirt or anything, because it'll jack up and there's no course correcting the further we go. So, make sure it's laying nice and flat on the previous piece. And if that's the case on both sides, you should be good to go. But the good thing is with this method, with only making a sea, if you do need to move some dirt around, you're not breaking your back excavating. You just have to carve out this little section and you're back in business, baby. On order and forward
[Music] [Music] Too short. I should have stayed in school. I'd rather be doing that than this right now. Although, these are going to look sick when they're done. I guarantee it.
All [Music] right, we've been at this for almost four hours now. We got 10 steps banged out. Very easy, very straightforward. Uh, design-wise, build-wise, labor intensive for sure. Swinging a hammer, throwing a shovel around. Not my ideal Saturday, if you ask me. So, fellas, if your wife or significant other sent this video to, my bad, dude. My bad. Got 13 steps in. I think I need five more. I do. I just think it's We're almost right here. about 36 in of height left to cover. Uh, and in fact, the way I'm going to operate it is run about the three four to five more steps and then make another landing here. So, it's like a bigger pad. So, you're not walking on mud or dirt. You're just standing on solid ground. I need a beer and a back massage. See you guys tomorrow. Next day, back for round two. We are going to finish this today. I'm sure it's going to be about a half a day's worth of work. We're almost there. These steps are going to look killer. Couple of more up here. Build our platform. We should be looking good.
[Music] [Music] I hate how murderers in movies are portrayed digging holes and they seem fine. not winded, barely glistened, glowing, I would say. And they can do it in like, I don't know, 10 minutes. That's what I hate about Hollywood, man. They lie to us about using shovels. And here comes the cherry on top. This is going to be our platform landing on top. We got a platform landing on the bottom. That way you can come up here, get stabilized, know where you are, get familiar with the area, and then start walking down. I'm going to drill my holes, throw my stakes in, and I'm going to need to bevel all this stuff so it's sloped appropriately for this.
[Music] All right, we're ready for gravel. What I have here is 3/8 aggregate. And the reason it's an aggregate cuz the corners are sharp and it's a type of rock, I guess. Uh as opposed to pravel, which is more round. The reason we're going with this stuff is those aggressive corners, the aggregate itself, they can compress a lot better and they don't move around as much as pravel does. But we do have a solution to not only enhance this, but also pravel if you want to go with it to make sure it stabilizes and doesn't start moving all over the place on our steps. So, my strategy here to save my back is I rented a mini skid steer from Tate's rents for the day. Uh it we have a big dump load of this aggregate at top that they delivered already. So I'm just going to start just pouring it down with the hopes that it goes underneath one another and then trickles all the way down. I'm a little concerned about the top three maybe steps cuz they have the soil coming to the top, but we'll throw some shovels around for that.
[Music] [Music] Fortunately for us, we got gravity working in our favor, but we'll see for how long.
[Music] So, the steeper it is up top, the harder it is for the rock to flow down. Uh, but once we get down below here, it's it's a freaking geyser. Uh, unfortunately, no easy way at this point. Just throwing some shovels around. However, I do have this theory. if we bought maybe planned ahead some OSB and just kind of made a small ramp and have the furthest point run down on that OSB and then kind of move it up. Uh but you know, hindsight 2020, right?
All [Music] right, we got everything spread. It's looking awesome already. But here's the kicker. Uh well, that pun intended. As you're going to be walking up, some people might kick the rocks to the side. So, what I'm going to do first is uh tamp it down a few times just to compress the aggregate, get all the sharp edges pressed together, and then we're going to figure out a way how to stabilize it. And fun fact, that's my first time trying to attempt to stabilize little pegravel aggregate. So, we'll both learn together.
[Music] What I have here is a mulch glue. This was recommended to me by a lot of people in a previous Instagram reel that I did. Uh, I got this at the local hardware store. You can also buy it online on Amazon. All the directions say is it has to be at least 50°, no colder, or else it doesn't work as properly. Second thing it says is do not dilute it. Just put it straight into a sprayer and spray. And the third thing it says is sometimes it takes between two to three coats depending on the things you're applying. For example, actively, you know, walking path area or hight traffic area, you're probably going to do three coats. And that's what I'm going to assume with. I'm going to throw in my sprayer. Try to do even coats. But it also says you need about 6 hours between coats. So, we'll see what the first day looks like, second day and third day, and we'll go from there.
[Music] [Music] [Music] It is the next day. We had our mulch glue finally dried up after three coats of the mulch spray. It is perfect. We got a few little scrambles on top, but everything in general, it's just there. I mean, it's not moving anywhere. I'm a huge fan of this. The steps came out incredible. The grand total for this project was $1,132. It included all the lumber, all the gravel, all the weed barrier, everything you see, plus the actual stakes to get all the stuff into the ground. It was a quick little weekend project, and I couldn't be more excited about it. But the big question is what should we build next?
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