We have a door step! It will one day be our back door. My partner decided one Saturday morning that this is the day we cement the step, so off I sped to get six bags of cement while he built some formwork, because when your partner gets enthusiastic about building it doesn’t pay to let him get distracted by something else before the job is done.

When I got home he had the formwork all done and a daughter lined up to help mix cement in the wheelbarrow. The local Rural Agent (hardware and feed shop) only had rapid set concrete, so that is what I got. In hindsight it may have been  a mistake because rapid set concrete is a bit crumbly. The step seems to be holding together though, I guess it’s just another experiment.

My daughter and husband got to work mixing cement and had the job done by the time I had half the weekly wash done.

The step is a trapezoidal sort of shape that conforms to the gap in the wall. It sits on top of the gravel filled tires and has two little legs that extend to the ground on either side of where the tires meet. You can see the form work at the bottom of the step in the photo. These little legs are there to (hopefully) prevent the step from moving off the foundation tires.

The level of the step is at the height of the future floor, to allow for plumbing and some gravity assistance in removing waste water from the shower and washing machine.

Since the day this step was built no work has been done due to a combination of much needed rain, work and overwhelming urges to knit. The next step is to put the door frame up on our step and brace it ready to build the walls higher around it. We also need to build a step down to ground level on the outside of the new door step.

Getting anything done around the humpy is agonizingly slow, but it is gradually getting there.