Steps From Concrete Bags

Question from Arline:
Back from day two of jury duty…it is a most interesting case…thank you for the detailed response to my construction questions…i must ask… how long before you should step in these bag steps????

Answer from Pat:
When I made the first flight of steps over fifty years ago it was fall and the weather was cool. I built those steps to solve a problem. A steep path had been eroded by an October rain such as we had this year but more torrential. We used this path daily to go from our garden up to my in-laws, the John Lloyd Wrights (son of Frank Lloyd Wright.) The steps I built were in full shade. I turned a sprinkler onto the bags for twenty minutes daily for three days and this kept them and the surrounding ground moist. On the afternoon of the third day I banged on the bottom step and it felt and sounded like a rock, so then I walked on the steps in the bags. Right away I tore off the paper and stepped on them again, and no problem. I was very pleased with the look.

I was so excited by my success that I ran straight up to my in-law’s house and asked them to come see what I had done. They came right away to look and were much amused by my funky but practical method of making steps, and I think they were impressed that I had done this all alone. (I had no garden help in those days.) But despite John’s laughter at my step-making method—like his famous father, John was also an architect—he told me we needed more of them. The next day he went with his apprentice to purchase more bags of concrete and used the same method to build several more steps higher on the path. John made his apprentice work much harder at it than I had done. John stood there in his ten gallon hat and pointing here and there with his cane as was his habit, while his obedient apprentice, down on his knees, cut off the tops of the bags and poured in the correct amount of water and mixed the concrete inside the opened bags and trowel it. I secretly liked the look of my steps better, but John’s steps look more architectural. When they had hardened and the paper was pulled off, France Wright (my husband’s mother) tripped down the path again in her high heels and flowing silk clothes and used an artist’s brush to stain all the steps a lovely shade of celadon green with her artists colors. She used a whole tube of very expensive Shiva gouache, of all things! There is still a trace of it to be seen today. That path never again suffered from erosion. My in-laws were really amazing and eccentric people and I have written a whole chapter about them in my new book, a second memoir that I am currently half way through writing.

When I made the new steps inside the patio a really hot Santa Ana struck the day I had finished. The steps were in full sun and I had a difficult time keeping them wet. I waited three days and then felt the bottom one. It seemed solid and I got too impatient. I walked on the two bottom steps before realizing my mistake and quickly stepping off onto the bank. Those two steps had cracked, but luckily no problem. When all the steps fully hardened the cracks simply looked artistic and rather ancient such as something one might find in a Roman ruin. I didn’t walk on them again for a week. When they had hardened I tore open the tops of the bags like you see in the photo and kept them wet a couple more days, so it was a full week before I walked on them all and by then they were fully hardened and had gone light gray in color.

I was more patient with the back flight that has twenty or more steps. I waited about 5 days and was faithful about keeping them moist over the weekend especially after they were fully installed by my helper. There was no Santa Ana and it was much easier, but I didn’t have total control over some of the design. The workman who helped me made a couple of them jut out over thin air. I told him any part of the bag that wasn’t supported below would break. I carefully explained a paper bag is not strong enough to hold up the front of a wet concrete step, but he would not listen to me. Over the weekend exactly what I knew would happen did happen. The front of two of the steps broke off just as I had said would happen. I climbed up the bank and lifted off the broken part onto the bank so it would not stick in place. My helper came back on Monday and fixed them with mortar, but the steps he fixed are a bit shallow because of that. We also ran into an irrigation pipe as we arranged the bags and that forced a detour which is not quite so attractive, but all in all these steps work fine, even the ones that weren’t done perfectly. What pleases me especially is how much my great-grandson, Archer has loved those steps ever since he learned to walk. He is five now and he still loves running around the garden using those steps en route.