Staircase for the porch.

As some of you might remember, I built  porch a couple of years ago.
Mette wanted it to have a wide set of stairs gently sloping into the garden. The kind of stairs that you could sit on and have a cup of tea.
I milled some wood and told her that the wood needed to dry a bit before I would make such a complicated project as a staircase out of it.

The following year she asked me what the progress was on the staircase, and I could truthfully tell her that the wood was still drying inside the barn. And that the thickest pieces were 3", so as a rule of thumb, they should dry for at least two more years.

Last year she didn't ask about the staircase, but casually mentioned that she was looking forward to getting one someday.

This home period she told me after a day or two that: the weather had been so nice, that now was the time for getting the staircase project started, and besides according to her calculations the wood had been drying the prescribed 3 years! So I couldn't use that as an excuse anymore!

I was pretty much speechless (which happens very seldom to me). I guess that is the "problem" with having a wife that is smarter than you  :-)

In a situation like that there is just one thing to do: Start building the project.

The wood for the stringers was jointed and planed, and the wood for the steps themselves was merely planed on one side.
The old temporary set of stairs had actually worked pretty well in terms of rise/run of the individual steps, so I stayed pretty close to that. I ended up using something like a 6"11/16 rise over a run of 11"5/8 (16.9 cm rise and 29.5 cm run)

Originally I had envisioned making a complicated project with Japanese joints etc. But I forgot how I had actually planned to execute that - so instead I tried to make it a simple but well functioning project instead.
To do that I cut some triangular blocks out and screwed them onto the stringers. That way I kept the full strength and could hope that there would be very little sagging once complete.
The triangles were aligned by help of a piece of string of which the outermost layers were "mysteriously" chewed into short sections. I can't say for sure who did it, but there were some impressive bite marks that "might"? correspond to the set of teeth in Bertha's mouth. That could also explain why the roll of string was suddenly found beneath the apple tree and no longer on the porch itself.

With the triangles in place it was all downhill from there, mounting the steps and later wrapping it all up in some thinner boards. I made a hatch on the corner, so that it will be possible to get below the porch at some point, if someone drops their keys etc. and they will fall through the spaces in the decking.

The final part of the project was to treat it all with some wood preservative and give it a coat of wood protection. (It is what the rest of the porch has been treated with). It will all go grey after a year or so in the sun anyway.

The best thing about the project is that it is now complete, and I have gotten rid of the stack of lumber sitting next to the mulesaw for three years.
The staircase is rock solid, and I asked Mette if she would be OK with me testing the strength by driving a Volvo Valp up the stairs and onto the porch? She said no.. Because now it looked nice and she didn't want the surface to be covered in tire tracks. I am still convinced that it would stand up to it and it would make a cool little video.

The stringers rest on a small tile (approx 5.5" x 5.5") 

Project completed (and no tire tracks)

The sewage system. (rant)

I have had a period with very little interest in the blog. Mostly because I haven't been doing any small scale woodworking and also because we have had to do a major rebuild of our sewage system.

This sewage business has really annoyed me. We had a perfectly well functioning old system with a septic tank, but some years ago one of our worthless governments decided that it was too popular to live in the countryside in Denmark, and something had to be done to prevent people from wanting to live there. Therefore they decided to impose a law requiring people to rebuild their sewage systems. There doesn't seem to be a uniform plan in the different communes (kind of like small counties). So some places people have not been forced to rebuild, and other placed like my place, people have. But for some reason it is not all people that have been forced to rebuild their systems. my neighbour for example have not been told to change his system, though it is the exact same system as our old one. And the cleaned water goes to the same recipient as ours. I don't want to be an informer and rat on him, because the last thing I want our otherwise pathetic society to transform into is a rat community.

The long story short is that we have had to get the garden dug up, and some new equipment installed, all at a total cost of approx. dkk 100.000,- (around US$ 15.000).
I have to tell y'all, that I could easily find a project or two that I would rather put my money in than this shit system. Dealing with this has drained me of a lot of my energy and left precious little desire for woodworking and even less for blogging.

I have often seen that Denmark has been declared the best place to live on the earth, and the Danes are supposed to be the happiest people around, I have never heard of anyone at all being interviewed about their happiness etc, so I tend to think that it is pure BS, based on statistics on how many hospital beds etc. are available and so on.


Lately, I have been seriously considering emigrating to a more civilized part of the World. Anywhere but this ridiculous excuse of a country.

So far the following places are on my list: (In alphabetical order)

- Australia, because there is supposedly lots of space, and the climate is way better.

- Canada, because there is supposedly lots of space, and the level of civilization seems to be high, and I believe it is sort of a welfare society as well. I have to confess that I have looked a lot into the immigration process already. I think my first choice would be Northwest territories, Around 40.000 people in a place the size of Spain means plenty of room for a small forest for me, and perhaps even a place to fish and hunt.

-England, because of the level of civilization, and they have a better climate.

-Germany, because of the level of civilization, some very nice and friendly people mixed with a beautiful language and a better climate (in the southern part at least).

-USA, because of the much more liberal laws and there is really nice people and lots of space. I would probably opt for Oregon, Montana or Alaska. The climate is also better.

Anyway, the rest of the family isn't quite convinced that it is time to move on yet, so it seems that I am stuck here.


The new sewage system itself is something called a planted filtration unit. It is an excavation filled with gravel with some special plants planted on top of it. There is an aeration system in the bottom of it that will supposedly enhance the bacteria efficiency.
It is not a particular advanced thing to make, but do to our legislation, things like this has to be made by an authorized person.

The old system meant that for every cubic meter of water that we used, we had to pay dkk 5.32 (80 cent).
With this new filtration unit this price has graciously been lowered to dkk 1.1 (17 cent).
BUT then there is a new requirement to have the system serviced once per year with a sample of the water being taken and sent to the commune for verification of the state of the filtration unit. cost: dkk 2000 (300 $)
There is also a small compressor that uses electrical power of around dkk 400 (65 $)

So all in all the system is a lot more expensive to us. See if you can guess which Dane is not very
happy.

The good news is that the basic porch is complete, I still need to make a few trimmings to it though.
There will be a 14 feet wide stair on the front part of it, going down to the lawn, and I need to make some sort of railing system to make it look more completed.

There used to be an OK lawn here. 

The filtration system.

The new porch 

The south part of the porch.

This is much more fun than messing with sewage systems.

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Japanese end joint (Okkake daisen tsugi)

For the porch I am going to need some planks that are longer than what I have on hand.
I could go the easy route and just bolt, screw or nail some together, but this is part of what I really like to be doing, so I didn't want to cheat myself from trying out a nice carpentry joint.

The Okkake daisen tsugi is also sometimes called Wari tsugi. In English it would be called a "Dadoed and rabbetted scarf joint".

My main source of inspiration for these joints is the book: The complete Japanese joinery, published by Hartley and Marks.

That book is an absolute treasure trove of information on the subject. There is even a description of the religious ceremony to be held prior to building a new home.
I can highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the subject of Japanese timber framing joinery.

Using hand tools only, it takes me roughly one hour and fifteen minutes to complete both joints on a set of 3x6" planks to be joined.
I need to complete a total of six long planks, so I might even get a bit faster when it comes to the last joint.

Today it is raining, and all the concrete pillars have been poured, so it is a welcome change to do some work in my workshop.

The female part of an Okkake daisen tsugi.

The set up, sawhorse and shop stool.

Halving the dado.

The completed joint. 

This is about the maximum length that is workable inside the shop. (6.5 m)

The tools used to make the joint.

Building a porch.

At long last I have started the actual building of the porch.
So far I have milled most of the wood to be used for it, though I still need a few more boards and joists.

Today the plan is to remove the old tiles and mark out where the holes for the concrete pillars are going to be.

I have contacted an equipment rental shop and tomorrow I will pick up an earth auger. That should hopefully save my back from a lot of work and also be a lot faster.

So far my plan is as follows:

Clear the area
Drill holes for the pillars.
Cast concrete for the pillars.
Mill the remaining wood needed (while the concrete sets and hardens).

The porch will be the same level as the floor inside the house, so it will be approximately 40" above the ground farthest away from the house.

The principal dimensions are:
Main porch: 5.5 x 5 meter (approx. 19' x 17')
Connecting porch: 1.2 x 2.5 meter (approx. 4' x 8')
South porch: 2.0 x 5.2 meter (approx. 6.5' x 17')

The main porch will be on the east side (garden side) of the house. Form that porch a small porch will form a connection to a porch on the south end of the house.

The South end of the house.

The sticks symbolises the porch.

Working ahead of the schedule

With the roof not even finished, I have undertaken yet another grand project: The future porch!
The reason I have started on this project already is that we still have a hired dumpster for the offcuts from tiles and bricks etc. This represents an opportunity to get rid of the old concrete stairs which would otherwise have required at least 5 trips to the land fill site.

The existing terrace is level with the ground, and the old massive stairs have been cracked and looked worn out ever since we moved in 14 years ago.

The plan for the new porch is to go back to the old original design according to some pictures we have from when the house was new. At that time, the porch was level with the floor inside the house and thus elevated approximately 40" above the ground.
SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) would like a wooden porch, and she would like it to be connected to another future wooden porch at the end of the house!

This leaves me with some planning and a nice job for next year or if I am lucky in the autumn.
Actually I am looking forward to this project since I am beginning to get fed up with having scaffolding and red dust from tiles everywhere.

I will need to mill some wood for the joists and the deck itself. The joists will probably be 2x6 and the deck itself will be 5x 1.25, all made out of larch which is the traditional choice for such a project here in Denmark.

The catch is that I have to go to a course on Wednesday and then back to work on Thursday. So I  won't be able to work on the projects for a period of 2 weeks. But If I am really smart, I am going to take some measurements so I will be able to plan into detail the build of the porch.

Yesterday I managed to persuade my daughter to paint the window for the machinery shed. She could choose between either to help demolish the concrete of the old stairs, or paint the window. She decided for the window.
It makes a remarkable change with a white window compared to the wood colour it was before. The difference is best seen from a distance.
I think that it looks so good that I might have to make some more windows for the machinery shed sometime.

The old stairs to the garden.

The painted window for the machinery shed (the left one)