Cellar Stairs - Part 2

The masons completed the tuck-pointing in the cellar entry earlier in the week.

Looking ahead to the forecast, the plan was to move Mulch Mountain when the weather was nice (Thursday - Sunday) and save the stair rebuild for when the rain started.

As you can see from the photo, the cellar doors aren't exactly weather tight, but they are good enough to keep me mostly dry for this project. As an aside, my dad built these doors what seems like a million years ago. We'll need to replace them again soon.

Here's a closeup of the tuck-pointing. Of course, the stone foundation is below grade and the brick is above on the exterior.

And here are the finished stairs. One type of fastener used consistently throughout.

The stringers are new, but I reused the treads. The face of the bottom step's rise was also re-used.

I created a "thrust block" of new stock that's up against the ends of the stringers, but below the facing on the bottom step. I used 12" spikes driven into the ground to make sure it doesn't go anywhere. It's a more traditional way of securing the stairs than the funky contraption that was there previously.

The drainpipe at the right used to connect to the downspout back in the day. I assume it goes to a cistern somewhere, but it's not been connected in a very long time.