it’s labor day here in the U.S. so what better time than to use the extra couple of yards of dirt, and a couple of hundred bricks and pavers we have laying to put in steps from the treehouse to the sauna. what better way is there to spend 6 hours on labor day than hauling dirt, bricks and pavers?

i’ve been planning on putting steps down the hill ever since we built the sauna 5 years ago but there’s always something more fun to do that put in steps and we didn’t ever have enough dirt or bricks or pavers to put in the steps. but slowly over time we’ve accumulated everything we needed from other projects ( or planned projects that never happened because they weren’t good ideas. like the time i thought i was going to build a huge charcoal/gas grill with wood fired brick oven combo monstrosity in the backyard. i bought hundreds of bricks and then decided i didn’t actually want a large brick oven in the back yard 🙂

the steps are mortarless. i put down enough dirt to create a level run then layed down a layer of bricks then two layers of pavers. i have no idea if it’ll stay level. it’s running between two trees that have thick layers of roots close to the surface and the ground doesn’t seem to shift very much. who knows maybe i’ll be constantly futzing with leveling and releveling but i’ll remain optimistic until proven otherwise.

i totally “winged it” on the rise over run and just started building a pattern that looked like it was going work out right. it did!

the view from the treehouse deck down the steps to the sauna. while sitting in front of the sauna is fun between rounds of throwing steam, i think sitting up in the trees will be nice.

maybe someday i’ll put a fireman’s pole off the deck so we can slide down to get the sauna just that much faster.