I took advantage of the perfect fall day to replace the vent cap for the island cooktop vent today. The roofers installed an entirely inappropriate cap for our 2:12 pitch roof. It would have prevented venting with the least bit of heavy snowfall. The version I designed and built (see details here) will work with accumulated snow of up to two feet. It also features an insulated pipe within a pipe to improve the thermal envelope and prevent condensation.

Mystery Photo Revealed: If you guessed that the mystery photo from Monday is of a pair of Merino wool socks with symmetrically worn pairs of holes in the toe area, you would be correct.

Most days, I treat myself to an Arizona brand Arnold Palmer (iced tea & lemonade) to accompany my lunch. I normally buy these at a convenience store near the River House. Today, I was in Billerica where I was scheduled to get a Covid booster and flu shot. Afterward, I treated myself to a roast beef sandwich from Mikey’s Famous Roast Beef (truly the finest you will ever taste). I popped into a nearby Cumberland Farms to grab my favorite beverage only to discover that they charge $1.79 for the exact same can that everyone else charges 99 cents for. Here is a company that has contracted with the Arizona Beverage Company to get a special version of the can with the price removed from the labeling so they can charge an 80% premium. I suspect that Cumberland Farms does this with many other products they sell and will not be receiving any future business from me.

Water is the last utility that must be connected to the River House. The Concord Water Department requires that any renovation or reconstruction project of a house older than 50 years must also include replacing the water main. Given that our house is located some 300 feet from the street, this is a non-trivial and expensive undertaking. Step one: Cut an opening in the roadway. Step Two: Excavate with a backhoe to a depth of 4 feet. Step Three: (the most interesting) Bring in the water department to expose the water main using what amounts to a pressure washer and massive vacuum cleaner truck. The high-pressure water is used to cut into the soil which is then sucked into the truck. This approach is used to prevent mechanical damage to the water main during excavation.

When Conantum (our neighborhood) was first established, the residents established and operated their own water utility including means for fluoridation long before it was available from the town. Eventually, our water district joined the town’s. Unfortunately, record keeping was not great and the exact location of the water main in our street was not well documented. It took several attempts to locate the water main and our take-off but eventually, all was exposed. Step Four: Decommission the old water take-off and add a new one using a saddle valve. The saddle valve makes it possible to tap into the main water line without interrupting service. Step Five: Connect the take-off valve to a new underground water meter pit by the side of the road. Step Six: Excavate a 300-foot long, 5-foot deep trench to the house and place the new water line on a base of sand before backfilling and compacting. Happily, all aspects of the work went according to plan and we are now ready to complete the final bits of plumbing work inside the house.

See if you can guess what this is a picture of. The answer will be revealed on Thursday.

The kids joined us for dinner today to belatedly celebrate my 65th birthday. We gathered at the River House for family photos before heading to the Road House to enjoy a meal of their making. Kyle prepared a smoked pork shoulder, Nico made roasted brussel sprouts, Maya made a chocolate cheesecake with raspberry coulis, and Jeanine whipped up some of her delicious cornbread. We shared the veritable feast with Maya’s boyfriend, Owen, and Nico’s soccer teammate Jovan, who is staying with us for a few nights.

After our family photograph, Maya wanted a photo of herself in the mini-excavator that is onsite for the installation of our retaining walls. Her brothers were quick to join her.

Stair tread construction for the River House is now complete. I will probably finish them with the same product we are using for the floors, Bona Traffic HD Raw. It is a water-based, commercial-grade floor finish that leaves the wood looking completely natural with no sheen whatsoever. Each tread weighs about 25 pounds so I have been getting a pretty good workout just moving these all around the shop.

We are seeing good progress on the outdoor hardscaping as well. We will have a small patio off the great room fashioned from large 2-inch thick stone slabs. These are set on a base of pea gravel and are intentionally placed to have wide gaps. These measures will allow rainwater to be absorbed into the ground rather than running off the top. The large rectangular stone will serve as a bench and we plan to complete the patio with a fire pit.

Nicolai is now working as the Lead Educator for the Bionic Project. The organization brings its message of inclusion and community to schools nationwide through educational programs that combine disability anti-bias classroom teaching with on-field adaptive sports clinics. Since starting he has worked with over 1,000 students in the Boston and San Francisco areas. Click the link to learn more about the Bionic Project.

In a welcomed respite from stair tread and cabinet building for the River House, I spent the day in Somerville doing consulting work for a client. While taking a break for lunch, I encountered an employee who was wearing a sweater that was very similar to the one I had on. A colleague who was watching us compare patterns was quick to grab a photo. The sweaters are both from the Long Wharf Supply Company SeaWell Collection. They are made from a soft blend of recycled oyster shells, recycled water bottles, and natural lambswool. The company reseeds up to 30 oysters with the sale of each sweater providing up to 1,500 gallons of naturally filtered seawater every day.

For the second day in a row, Nicolai has helped me with work at the River House. Today, we started refining the stair treads. I put a rounded profile on the edges with a router and Nico followed up with the sander to produce a very smooth surface. We completed all 29 treads and then began the process of adding end caps. I will be tied up with consulting work tomorrow but hope to have the treads ready for finishing by the end of the week.

For weeks I have been putting off the installation of the third Wi-Fi access point in our new house. This is because it is mounted on a very high ceiling located over the stairwell. I chose the location to maximize signal coverage on the second floor using a computer model and did not pause to think about the challenges of mounting it. I finally came up with a simple if somewhat sketchy-looking solution to gain access to the ceiling. I was also able to install the smoke/carbon monoxide detector using the same setup.

With the flooring completed, it was possible to finish the assembly and installation of the kitchen island and induction cooktop. The left side of the island has a recess for stool seating and a hidden outlet with two USB-C charging ports. The far side endcap has several shelves for commonly used spices and cooking oils and an easy-access outlet. On the cooktop side, there are twelve extra deep drawers. The aisles are wide enough for someone to walk past the open dishwasher or refrigerator or to accommodate multiple cooks in the kitchen.

Tile work throughout the house is largely complete and I have now installed the wall controls for the digital shower mixer valves. The photo above is of the main bathroom and the one below is in the guest shower. We really like the riverstone tile that our interior designer recommended.

Nico was among 13 in his ROMP expedition group of 20 to summit the Cayambe Volcano in Ecuador yesterday. We have yet to hear about the details of the climb but we can expect a full download when Nico returns to the States on Monday. This is his second successful high-altitude summit only a few hundred feet lower than Kilimanjaro which he climbed with me when he was 13. At these elevations, you are literally above the clouds and the views are awe-inspiring. I believe the distant peak in the photo below is of the Antisana Volcano some 35 miles away.

UPDATE: We have now learned that Nico was the first on the team to reach the summit. The guides referred to him as “The Machine.” He waited at the top for the rest of the group for 45 minutes but then became so cold he had to begin his descent. Unfortunately, the professional photographers on the expedition kept pace with the main contingent and this left Nico with only the photographs taken by his guide. While on the summit, he released a small portion of my mother’s cremains. She was born and grew up in Ecuador and would have been so proud to learn of Nico’s exploits in her homeland.

Had it not been for some unexpected distractions, Jeanine and I would have completed the primary assembly step for all the stair treads to be used in the River House. As it stands we glued up 22 of the required 29 treads. They still need to be trimmed to length and to have end caps added.

In the evening, we enjoyed our first dinner at the River House to celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary. Jeanine picked up gourmet takeout from Woods Hill Table and grabbed a couple of camping chairs from the Road House on the way over. It was the perfect way to end a week of working together. In Jeanine’s words, a couple that glues together sticks together. I have now spent half of my life stuck to the best partner I could wish for. My hope is that we can spend another 33 years together in our new home.

Normally, I would spend much time outdoors photographing the fall foliage at this time of year. This year, however, priorities dictate that I continue to focus on completing my construction projects for the River House. Even so, on this perfect fall day, I could not help to pause for a couple of photos. The first was taken from the site of our future patio. The second, with my drone over the inundated banks of the Sudbury River.

Today, with assistance from Jeanine, we reduced ten 4′ x 8′ sheets of bamboo plywood to the parts necessary to assemble twenty-seven 3-inch thick, 44-inch wide stair treads for the River House. Counting the three prototypes I built yesterday, we will have a total of 29 and a spare. The tops, bottoms, and sides are numbered so I can match the grain for each tread. The end caps are pictured in the foreground. Still to be completed are 800 lineal feet of lock miter joints which will probably take the better part of a day to machine.

Unlike my brother who is a master angler, I have never really had much interest in fishing. The same cannot be said for many of the crew working on our house. Pictured here is one of our masons. He asked permission to fish in the river during his break time and I was happy to grant it. He has been catching fish most days but today he hauled in a really big one, a carp I believe. Should we ever be blessed with grandchildren, I may have to procure a couple of fishing poles for their entertainment.

In preparation for their climb of the Cayambe Volcano, Nico’s group did a training climb on the Imbabura Volcano. Unfortunately, they had to turn back just past the halfway point because of a massive wildfire.

Closer to home, Maya is hiking and camping in the White Mountains with her boyfriend his younger brother, and his girlfriend.

I took the day off from working on the River House to attend a memorial service for Sarah Doherty held in her hometown of Taunton, MA. Sarah lost her leg as a 13-year-old to a drunk driver but never let that loss keep her from her passions. She was very athletic and loved hiking, mountain climbing, and downhill skiing. She summited Mount Rainier, Mount Denali, and Mount Kilimanjaro and completed the 500-mile Camino de Santiago. Her desire for a better crutch led her to cofound SideStix with her husband Kerith. Nico did a two-month internship at the company, located in British Columbia, and we have become sizeable investors in the business. Sarah was one of 9 children including a twin sister and something of a celebrity in Taunton. The service was very well attended and very moving. Nico wanted to attend but is out of the country as did Jeanine who is out of state attending the 80th birthday of our dear friend Jean Cass, pictured below in the white blouse.

I arrived in Taunton ahead of the service and used the time to photograph the very handsome Bristol County Superior Court building.

Today, I turned 65, the traditional age of retirement. Reflecting on my life thus far and looking to the future, I think retirement for me is just a new chapter of work and play focused on my passions. I spent the day in my workshop at the River House, cranking out cabinetry. Ten hours of hard physical labor left me exhausted and covered in dust and yet, I have never been happier. I thoroughly enjoyed my career as an engineering executive and still enjoy the consulting work I do but there is something uniquely satisfying about designing and building things of which I am proud and that will endure beyond my lifetime.

When I returned to the Road House, I discovered my inbox and messages flooded with birthday wishes and photos from the past (Jeanine had put the word out to family and friends to photo bomb me). A shower left me relaxed and free of the day’s accumulation of dust so that I could thoroughly enjoy my requested birthday meal. There is nothing quite like the classic flavor combination of sweet tomatoes with fresh basil and mozzarella served on slices of fresh French baguette and topped with a balsamic glaze. A simple meal for a man who finds joy in simple things.

We will have a family celebration in 2 weeks when all the kids can attend. Maya is off to New Hampshire for hiking in the White Mountains this weekend, Nico is in Ecuador getting ready to climb the Cayambe Volcano, and Kyle is headed to Montana for a wedding and to visit Glacier National Park next week.

I have so much to be thankful for; a truly amazing wife and family, good health, and the means to pursue my dreams. For these gifts I am very grateful.

Jeanine, Maya, and I were treated to a lovely dinner at the Frenchie Wine Bistro in Boston by my second cousin Vinny and his wife Michele. They are visiting their son JD, pictured above with his girlfriend Chelsea, for the Boston College Family Weekend. On the left is Samantha, their daughter who came up from New York City to join the reunion. Maya and Sam seem like kindred spirits and I only wish we would have visited with her family more often as they were growing up.

On the River House front, Jeanine and I made great progress on drawer boxes. We have now completed 54 and had to move them out of the shop because of their sheer volume. Once we have made the full set, I plan to set up my HVLP (high volume, low pressure) spray gun to apply a water-based protective finish.

Perhaps our most admired sub-contractor on the River House project is Marcio. He has been slowly and meticulously tiling each of the four bathrooms. Pictured above is the alcove above the tub in our third bathroom. His attention to detail and craftsmanship is next-level. He has had to suspend work temporarily while the flooring guys moved in to do their thing so he has been helping out the stone masons on the outside of the house. It looks like both the tile and stone work will be completed in about two weeks and the flooring should be done by the end of this week.

With the help of Jeanine who has quickly mastered the art of glue application, we assembled 30 drawer boxes over the last two days. Jeanine applied glue to the lock miter joints on the drawer sides while I did so for the front and back. I then fit the parts together including the drawer bottom while Jeanine readied the clamps. Once we found our rhythm, we were turning out a completed box every 4 to 5 minutes. After each group of six boxes, a lack of more clamps required us to pause for 30 minutes while the glue set up. The final operation was edge routing (to soften all the sharp edges) and sanding. Tomorrow, we will start another batch of 24 boxes which will give us enough to complete the kitchen, pantry, mudroom, and laundry. The remaining 56 will be for the bathrooms, walk-in closets, and shop.

Our landscape plan for the River House includes a small patio in the backyard. It will be accessed from the great room by a set of stone slab stairs. Installation of the steps was completed today and we could not be happier with the way they look. Big rocks will be featured prominently in our outdoor spaces as well as all indigenous plantings.

This morning, Maya helped me prepare parts for 30 drawer boxes; 2 sides, a front and back for each one. That is 120 piece parts each requiring a lock miter joint at both ends and a full-length slot for the drawer bottom. Even with 80 more drawers to go (320 more piece parts) it still feels like we made a major dent in the work. With her help, we completed the work in one-third the time it would have taken me to do it alone. In the afternoon, we turned our attention to repairs for Maya’s tiny house which sustained major damage when a massive tree limb struck the front porch.

We used two hydraulic bottle jacks to elevate the roof ridge beam while simultaneously using a winch to pull the sides of the house inward. In a matter of a few hours, we were able to bring all the walls back to their proper positions and secure them in place. A lot of cosmetic work remains to be done, but we both felt thrilled to have addressed the major structural issues. Jeanine assisted by hauling all of the debris over to the dumpster at the River House.

My sister Alissa shared photos and video of the ceremony to inter the cremains of my parents at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Schenectady where they were members. Their commingled ashes were added to the garden above which sits in front of the sculpture that my mother worked to bring to the church and the Japanese maple tree we planted in their honor.

Nico has a small portion of my mother’s cremains and will spread them when he reaches the peak of the Cayambe Volcano in Ecuador the country of her birth.

Before building more than a hundred drawer boxes destined for the River House, I completed a single prototype today to optimize the construction details and verify the fit with the hardware. I was very happy with the results and will add the bamboo drawer fronts only after all the drawer boxes have been installed.

Meanwhile, the flooring contractors have been making great progress and have completed the entire great room. The 6-inch wide, quarter-sawn white oak can be seen in the photo above as well as a tile sample for the kitchen backsplash.

Kyle is “working” in Cabo this week with other members of his team from Hims and Hers. The company has several such retreats each year which is a great way to make remote workers, like Kyle, feel a real sense of connection to the company. Needless to say, it sounds like he is having a wonderful time.

Masonry work on the exterior of the River House got started in earnest today. I am really pleased with the aesthetic choices the masons are making both with respect to pattern and color. The stonework will cover the foundation of the house and garage’s entire perimeter and the walkout basement’s full-height wall. The team of three masons each use a rock hammer to fine-tune the shape of each stone for a perfect fit. It is estimated that this work will take three weeks to complete.

The photo may be a little confusing. The windows on the left are showing a reflection of the river. The door on the right shows the interior of my shop because the lights are on.

Having exhausted my supply of bamboo plywood, I turned my attention to fitting the already constructed cabinet frames with drawer slides. Each one must be very precisely located so this is a very time-consuming process. Thus far the house has 90 drawers and that is before counting those that will go into the yet-to-be-built dressers in the main and guest walk-in closets. I estimate that will add another 20. If you think this sounds like a lot of drawers for a small house you would be correct. The reason the number is so high is two-fold. First, drawers offer much better access to under-counter cabinets so we have very few that are fitted with doors. Second, a large percentage have four drawers rather than the more common number of three, Shallower drawers make for less digging to find things underneath. By using a rail-less cabinet design, we will also pick up 4 additional inches of storage height per cabinet. See the comparison below.

Road House 3-drawer design with a total storage height of 20-1/2″.

River House 4-drawer design with a total storage height of 24-1/2″.

The first stone block that will serve as part of a retaining wall was installed today. Having seen almost every other type of retaining wall eventually succumb to the pressure behind it, I am quite confident this one will stand the test of time. It is 2 feet thick and weighs over a ton.