The front door has two steps to get onto the porch and a sort of half step to actually get in the door. There is no railing, nor any good way to make a railing.
The side door only has one step, but it's about 7 inches tall. This is easier if you have someone that has trouble with steps.
On a good day, my dad can manage that step, but on a bad day, I don't want him to have to try, so we built a ramp.
If you haven't used a wheelchair, that probably looks like an enormous ramp for one step, but it's actually a tiny bit shy of the recommended "one foot of ramp for every inch of height."
The ramp itself is just over 6 feet long instead of 7 because I wanted to leave enough room at the end for him to turn his chair (the car port is only 10 feet wide).
I had a hard time finding simple directions to build a ramp, so I'm putting this out there!
Materials: I bought one sheet of flooring plywood, two 2 x 6 boards, some nails, and some traction tape.
How to (short version):
I had the store cut the plywood to 3 feet by 6 feet (keeping the scrap wood).
I cut the 2 x 6s into 4 (6 foot) diagonals.
I nailed the 3 x 6 foot board onto the diagonals.
I nailed the scrap wood onto the bottom of the ramp.
(optional) I spray painted the ramp and added traction tape.
More detail:
The hard part was cutting the correct angle on the 2 x 6s to make the supports. The easiest thing would be to start by cutting them to a 6 foot length.
I used 2 thumbtacks and a length of string to mark the angle. I put one thumbtack at the corner of the board and put the other tack 6 feet away on the other edge (forming a diagonal line). I rubbed the line with chalk and then snapped the line against the board so that it left a clear line of the diagonal. I cut along that line with a circular saw (use a blade with large teeth).
Each of those cuts gives you two 6 foot diagonal boards, so, when you do the second board, you'll have 4 supports.
You space them evenly and nail the top board to those supports.
Now, the thing to remember is that the plywood flooring is about a half inch thick. Your supports are 5.5 inches tall (2 x 6 is actually 1.5 x 5.5). I needed another half inch, so I used the scrap wood to make a bottom for the ramp. This gave it the correct height (6.5 inches was close enough) and added stability.
Optional: I added a metal edge on one side as a guide to keep wheels from going over the edge).
I also spray painted it to make it look more finished. My dad has some trouble with his eyes, so I painted it white for high contrast, then oversprayed it lightly with blue to make dirt show less.
I finished up by adding traction tape.
I keep saying "I" but this ended up being a home school project! And a big thanks to my mom and dad for teaching my enough carpentry to make stuff!
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