i am currently updating a home that we purchased in may. it has old brick entry steps that are shailing off and basically crumbling. there is also a brick wall attached to all of this along with the start of our wrap around deck posts. (the deck starts at our front door and begins to wrap around the house from there)
my plan is to redo the deck (eventually) but for now i am painting all of the brick and the steps with off white to get rid of the yellow/grey colours of the original brick. i would then like to look at redoing the steps in an ipe or cedar. the deck railings will be white along with any exposed brick.
Questions:
1. do i have to knock down the old stair structure (huge job and $$$) or 2. can i skin the stairs with the cedar decking
3. would or could I pour concrete over the exisiting brick steps to level them, fill all the gaps, holes and resolidify the structure?
4. could i then fasten the decking to the new concrete?
I know you don't want to hear this, but you're better off taking the steps out and starting over. Otherwise you're always going to have an unstable base -- just like with laying a floor, you need a stable subfloor. See if you can get some cheap laborers for the removal.
