Installation of our interior doors commenced today. Bedrooms and offices will feature 5-panel frosted glass doors while others will get a flush panel. This photo is in silhouette but I will be sure to publish a properly lit one when I get a chance. We anticipate that all the doors will be installed this week. Curious to test out the magnetic latches, I shut the door behind me only to discover I was trapped inside my office. Too embarrassed to call out for assistance, I escaped by way of the window.

A number of crane flies appear to have taken up residence in our newly painted garage attracted, no doubt, by the bright white color. As they do not bite and only live for about two weeks they seem like an innocuous guest and we are happy to share our space with them. I had the River House to myself today due to the holiday and spent most of my time installing recessed lights. A trip to the Home Depot in Watertown placed me close to Kyle so I dropped in to assist him with the finishing touches he is making on his renovated basement before his new tenants move in next week.

The Pemigewasset Loop is a 31-mile hike in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Maya completed the loop this weekend with her boyfriend, Owen, and another friend from work. Her flatmates, Fiona and Grace were originally planning to make the hike but came down with Covid days ahead of the adventure. In total, the group summited 14 peaks – Flume, Liberty, Little Haystack, Lincoln, South Lincoln, Lafayette, South Lafayette, Garfield, Galehead, South Twin, Guyot, West Bond, Bond, and Bondcliff. Maya reported sleeping for 10-1/2 hours the night of her return.

Pictured above are the batteries for the energy storage system that will power the River House in the event of a power outage. They can also be used to shift the time of use for grid power (charge from the grid during off-peak times, supply the house during peak hours) that will allow us to purchase electricity when it is cheapest. Mounting these to the garage wall was no small feat given that each weighs more than 500 pounds and that I did so working alone using levers and blocks to lift the units an inch and a half at a time. Mounting and connecting the batteries took the better part of the day, a task that could have been easily completed in half the time with the aid of a forklift and a couple of really strong assistants. Even so, there is something very satisfying about moving really heavy things alone using the principles of mechanical advantage.

The turnout this afternoon at our neighborhood summer picnic was quite good; enhanced no doubt by the perfect weather, a nice respite from all the rain we have been having. Our community seems to be composed primarily of really young families or retirees with little else in between. After a rather unproductive morning working at the River House, relaxing for a few hours was nice.

Kyle has graduated from apprentice to novice carpenter. He created this video to document his first major solo woodworking project. With new tenants about to rent his newly renovated basement, he decided to add much-needed storage to his garage in the form of 2-foot-deep shelves. It fills me with great joy to see him using the skills he developed while we worked together on the renovation.

Jeanine joined me at the River House to check out the build progress. We used the opportunity to model what our house number will look like at scale. Maya 3D printed these numbers for us at work and even though I could not hold them up with the proper spacing, we are very pleased with the size. Initially, we thought we would buy backlit numbers and I provisioned for the power to do this. Upon further reflection, however, I think we have decided that we would prefer not to illuminate the numbers. Visitors looking for our house at night will be more likely to rely on the reflective numbers on our mailbox than peering through the 300 feet deep forest of trees separating our house from the road.

Last weekend I ran over a turtle with my car when I arrived at the River House to work. It would appear to be a female snapping turtle and measured about 7 inches in length. I did not see the turtle nor did I realize I had driven over it. I only noticed it when I got out of my car and immediately felt sick to my stomach, not at the sight, but because I had caused the death of this wonderful creature. I suspect the turtle had come from the river in search of a place to bury her eggs. This only compounded my feelings of guilt. By the time I had completed my work for the day, all that remained of the turtle was its shell. I take a small measure of consolation knowing that the other wildlife we share our yard with gained nourishment from this tragedy. Over the course of my life, I have helped to save a handful of wayward turtles. I hope this history of compassion and care will help me to forgive myself.

My new jointer planer has 5 rows of 15mm x 15mm x 2.5mm square four-sided convex edge carbide knives for a total of 80 knives. When an edge of a knife gets dull or damaged you simply remove the locking screw and rotate the knife to a new edge. The helical arrangement of the blades results in a smoother cut and less tear-out on difficult grain. I spent some time doing the final tuning of the infeed and outfeed tables today as well as sealing all the joints on my dust collection system.

While it is far from complete, my new wood shop at the River House is officially open for business. As of today, all of my major machines are operational and I have access to most of my tools and building supplies. The automatic dust collection system is up and running on my table saw, jointer/planer, and bandsaw. Jeanine stopped by to see the garage doors that were installed today and found me working in my shop for this photo. Just ten days ago, this was an empty room and now I am ready to start building cabinetry for the house.

Nicolai returned to the soccer pitch this afternoon playing in a showcase match to kick off the month-long Boston Unity Cup. He played with and against many of his teammates from the US national team as well as several exciting new players who have recently joined the sport. The tournament is meant to reimagine the power of soccer to build community, connect people from diverse backgrounds, and promote equity. Nico had 2 goals and 2 assists in a tight 4-3 win. Photos from the match can be found here.

I spent the morning moving tons (literally) of shop supplies and hardware from the detached garage where it has been stored for the last two and a half years into the new house’s basement. A constant light rain only added to the drudgery of the task. Currently, the mechanical room and shop are the only two rooms that are ready for occupancy, all others have yet to be painted. As I have yet to create any permanent storage solutions in the shop it is getting quite crowded so I opted to temporarily store much of what I moved in the mechanical room.

Having successfully tested my first pneumatic blast gate earlier in the week, I moved on to the assembly and testing of the remaining units during the afternoon. I still have to fabricate and attach the arm that connects the pneumatic cylinder’s piston to the blast gate.

The dust collector in a wood shop is a shared resource. In the simplest systems, you connect a single hose to whichever machine you happen to be using. This stops being fun on your first project. The next step up incorporates an array of ducts that connect all machines to the dust collector. This requires “blast gates” at each machine so that only the one being operated is open thus maximizing air flow. This is what I have used in all my previous shops. Whenever you move to a new machine, you close the blast gate of the last machine and open the blast gate of the next machine. Over the years, this too becomes tiresome. The ultimate solution is an automated system that detects which machine you are using and opens only the blast gate connected to it and turns on the dust collector. A couple of years ago, I design such a gate fashioned from an off the shelf blast gate coupled to a pneumatic actuator and control valve. This afternoon, I connected the first of seven to my bandsaw. Open and close times are fully adjustable. I plan to slow the close enough to allow the dust collector to clear the ducts before shutting down.

For the second time this week, I rented a trailer from U-Haul. This time it was to pick up 780 pounds of laser-cut steel stair stringers that we will be using in the River House. Pictured above is a photo from earlier this month depicting my final design. Below are the fabricated stringers loaded onto a utility trailer. On and offloading these was quite a good workout with each of the twelve averaging 65 pounds.

As if I needed more exercise, I decided that today was the day to move my very heavy jointer/planer from the garage into my shop. The ground was relatively dry and weather predictions are calling for on-and-off rain for the next several days. Using a bunch of blocks and levers, I single-handedly got the machine off its shipping pallet and onto the dolly I built yesterday. I was grateful that Kyle was able to join me after he finished work to assist with the difficult task of getting it down to the basement level and up a home-built ramp onto the shop floor.