With a major Nor’easter forecasted for Valentine’s Day, I thought it wise to pick up roses for my sweetheart a little early. She has been the love of my life for 40 years.

In preparation for a visit from the kids to watch the Super Bowl together, I fitted the TV in our living area with an over-the-air antenna and sound bar so we could tune in to the game and listen to the broadcast in high fidelity. When it is just Jeanine and I, we watch television in the small 2-person theater off the kitchen. We included a second large-screen TV in our house plan just for occasions such as today when we are entertaining a larger group. When not being used for this infrequent purpose, the TV will be used to display my photographs in a picture frame mode and the soundbar to stream music.

Jeanine’s father, a salesman for Simonds Saw (files, bandsaw blades) used to refer to woodworking machines as “meat and bone saws” given their ability to quickly separate an operator from one of their digits. These tools are especially dangerous when cutting smaller pieces. I have been using wood biscuits extensively in the construction of the shelving for our walk-in closets. Since the shelves are horizontally aligned, the biscuits mechanically interfere with each other in the middle of the vertical supports into which they are seated. Solving this problem is a simple matter of trimming a tiny bit off the side of each biscuit. That is easier said than done safely. I built this simple jig to facilitate the operation and to keep all my fingers intact.

My mother, who was an excellent knitter, would have been so proud of Maya upon the completion of her first sweater. In the works for a couple of months, Maya shared this photo of the completed project with the family and immediately received an order for one from Kyle. She is quoting a lead time of one year 🙂 which dissuaded the rest of us from placing our orders.

The walk-in closet of our main bedroom is 11 feet deep. I completed the shelving/hanging unit that hangs on the right wall today. It features 3 feet of a high-hanging rod, 8 feet of low-hanging rod, and 16 shelves of various heights principally designed for shoes and boots. There is room on top for larger items such as luggage. The left side of the closet will have a built-in 16-drawer dresser with shelving above. I expect to begin that project next week. Tomorrow, I hope to complete a similar unit for the smaller guest room walk-in closet.

When I built the kitchen and bathroom cabinetry for the River House, it was still under construction and I had little trouble making large components in the shop and then moving them into place fully assembled. Now that the walls have been painted, the floors finished and the stair railing installed, it is much safer to construct new built-ins in situ rather than risk dents and bruises to the new house. Pictured above are some of the parts for our future walk-in closet. My plan is to do all machining in the shop and tranport the pieces to the bedroom where I will do final assembly. The holes will support the hanging rods and the long slots are for biscuit joints that will be used to support shelving. It is important they all be aligned perfectly so that adjacent shelves appear as one continuous line. This will make more sense when I share a photo of the finished unit (perhaps as early as tomorrow with any luck).

For the last few weeks, we have been using a 14″ cube made of styrofoam as a side table for the swivel chairs in our living room. It was part of the packaging material for our new couch and just the right size. This morning, I woke up with a design in mind for a permanent replacement made from leftover bamboo plywood. I thought that a cube was just a little too basic so I decided to add an 8-degree taper giving it a wider top than bottom. In aggregate, I spent under three hours capturing CAD for the design, building it, and finishing it with a hard wax oil. The main project for the day, however, was applying finish to all the plywood that will be used to construct shelving for the walk in closets of the main and guest bedroom; a total of 256 square feet. Jeanine and I worked together to complete the job which took a solid three hours.

At long last, we have received our Certificate of Use and Occupancy for the River House. Construction of our new home started on August 4, 2022, which makes the build duration 550 days or 18 months. The time for permitting, design, and demolition of the old house adds another 9 months or so. The journey has not been without obstacles and some measure of strife. On the other hand, it represents the fulfillment of a lifelong dream and we could not be happier with the result. While there is still more work to be done, we have now crossed a new threshold, that of the home where we plan to spend the rest of our lives.

Pictured above is the last document needed to secure a Certificate of Occupancy for the River House. It was produced by our surveyor who captured the final field data today. The drawing shows the setbacks of the house from the property lines. You may notice that we are under the 15 feet limit on our northern side yard. Fortunately, there is a provision in the town code that allows you to be up to 3 feet under the side yard setback if you add that amount to the opposite side yard setback. The original house was situated in this asymmetrical fashion to optimize the river views in both directions. The rear yard setback is interesting in so much as our lot includes the land out to the middle of the Sudbury River. Barring any glitches, we should have our CoO tomorrow.

As we were returning from rug shopping, Jeanine and I were treated to a spectacular sunset over the Sudbury River. Our timing could not have been more perfect and I am thankful for this gift of light.

Yesterday, we obtained a temporary certificate of occupancy for the River House!!! All that remains to be done before obtaining our final CoO is to submit an updated as-built plot plan that includes the roof overhangs. Our surveyor will be here on Sunday to take the necessary measurements and we should have the needed drawing by Monday.

In the meantime, we are free to start moving in which we have decided to do gradually, one carload at a time. My nephew, Rory, helped out with Jeanine’s stationary bike which will initially be located in her sanctuary. The gradual move allows us to organize the new house one room at a time. In about a week, we will be ready to rent a small van to move the larger items over.

The second episode of The Build Show covering our home just dropped. Host Matt Risinger and our architect Steve Baczek cover several aspects of the interior space including my shop, the mechanical rooms, the kitchen, the front door, the master bathroom, and the stairs.

Now that all the requirements for occupancy have been addressed, I am moving on to the design and construction of the built-ins for our walk-in closets. Jeanine completed an inventory of all her clothes, shoes, and accessories so that I can ensure they will each have a proper-sized space. I have not done the same exercise but should be fine if I allocate myself half of what she needs. Pictured above is an initial concept which is sure to undergo refinement. It features 16 drawers, spaces for 54 pairs of shoes, 11 feet of lineal hanging rod, 20 large shelves, and a countertop.

At long last, we had our final inspections for the River House today. We passed our energy storage system (battery backup) electrical, fire, and building inspections. Only the permitting for the Natural Resource Commission has been more arduous than the battery. Because the technology is so new, the fire inspectors have approached the whole situation with an overabundance of caution. The next Concord family that decides to install an ESS will have us to thank for blazing the trail.

We were not so fortunate with our occupancy inspection. We failed on two counts. (1) We have been using the area under the landing for our basement stairs as a storage area for leftover paint and tile. Access to the space was by way of a 45″x 30″ opening. By code, the interior of this space needs to be finished with 5/8″ gypsum wallboard to impede fire propagation. The amount of work to do this in such a confined and irregular space would not be worth the benefit. Our other option was to permanently seal off the access opening which is what I opted to do. Pictured above is the final result which I completed after a run to Home Depot for the materials. (2) The door to the garage needs to be self closing. The one we have is equipped with self closing hinges but they had not been engaged. I attempted to do so, but a manufacturing defect in one of the hinges prevented me from finishing. I have called our builder to address this problem as it should have been installed with the springs engaged in the first place.

It would have been nice to pass on our first attempt, but I am thrilled that our punch list is so short. As soon as the garage door is addressed we should be good to go.

My nephew Rory has been visiting for the past week and will be with us for the next. He is an talented personal trainer among other things. Nico invited him to Boston for an intense week of physical training and healthy eating. His amputee soccer teammate, Jovan is also staying at the Road House and participating in the training/eating regime. Regrettably, I have been so occupied with preparations for the final inspection at the River House that I have spent very little time with him thus far, a situation I plan to rectify in the coming week.

Maya is dog-sitting for Bella again and joined us at the River House this afternoon before embarking on the continuing repairs of her tiny house. Bella is the best-trained dog I have ever known. She can do a handstand or jump up onto Maya’s back on command. She is also adorable and very cuddly once she gets to know you.

For the last 8 months or so, I have been operating without a shop sink, something that is quite essential when working with glues and finishes. During the first 4 months, I had to go upstairs and outside to the detached garage where our temporary water service was located. Talk about inconvenience. Once the water service was connected to the house, I only needed to walk upstairs to the laundry room, a monumental improvement but still not ideal. Today, I decided it was time to install the sink I had planned for my shop. Because our septic tank is located above the level of the basement a lift pump is needed to pump the drain water up to the main drain line. I had the plumbers leave stubbed lines for the drain, vent, and water supply lines near the shop ceiling in anticipation of this day. The first order of business was to build a cabinet carcass and mount it to the wall. While I was at it, I decided to repurpose a set of floor standing shelves into a wall mounted version. Next, I connected the lift pump (lower left) to the drain, vent, and discharge pipes and plumbed in the hot and cold water supply lines and shutoff valves. Finally, I added the countertop, backsplash, sink and faucet before connecting up all the hoses and wiring . The faucet can be turned on and off with a gesture – very convenient when your hands are covered in varnish and hence the need for wiring. Eventually, I will add drawers and doors to the front of the cabinet but for now I am very content to have an operational sink no more than a few steps away.

Jeanine and I are spending nights at the River House to free up beds for our guests at the Road House. Visiting from Seattle is our nephew Rory who is here to help Nico and his amputee soccer teammate Jovan, our other guest, with 2 weeks of intense physical training. We woke up to about an inch of fresh snow and Jeanine can be seen here enjoying her morning coffee.

At long last, the stairs and railings are done. I put the final coat of finish on this afternoon and we are now ready for inspection. In total, the railings took about 3 weeks of build time, and the stairs about the same. If I had known just how much work would be required, I might have opted for a turnkey solution. On the other hand, the savings we realized could purchase a small new car. I am most appreciative of my gluing and finishing assistants, Jeanine and Nico.

After weeks of work all 150 balusters, 7 Newell posts, 4 hand rails, and 3 guard rails have been permanently installed. The final step was to glue top caps to the Newell posts. We are now officially ready for inspection by the building department and hope to have our occupancy permit shortly. Tomorrow, I will do some final sanding and finishing work and then move on to built-ins for our walk-in closets.

To maximally stabilize the Newell posts I am constructing for the River House, I decided to channel them through the end of the stair tread before fastening them to the floor. This adds a considerable amount of strength at the expense of a rather complicated mating joint with multiple critical dimensional tolerances. Machining these was possibly the most stressful work I have done on the house thus far The slightest mistake on either part would have resulted in a depressingly large amount of rework. I perfected my approach on scrap material before attempting the work on the final components and thankfully this led to a successful outcome.

I installed three out of seven Newell posts today. More accurately, I installed three-quarters of each post. I have left one side open so that I can secure the railings with a bolt driven from the inside. Tomorrow, I will glue on the missing face and top cap. The base is glued to a cleat that is the same size as the inside of the hollow post. The cleat is secured to the floor with a massive lag screw. If tomorrow goes smoothly, I should be finished with the railings by the end of Monday and we will then be ready for our certificte of occupancy inspection. Fingers crossed.

Thanks to our neighborhood list server, I was alerted to the approach of a bevy of swans, 13 in total. I was able to grab my good camera and photograph them as they swam past the house. Ice has begun to form near the banks but the bulk of the river is still flowing. If I had to guess, I would say they were having a leisurely swim, resting from what was likely several hundred miles of flying. Jeanine arrived at the house shortly after they passed by on the water but spotted them in the air as they resumed their migration.

I completed the last three railings for the staircase today by machining the holes needed to connect and secure the balusters to the rail. The anatomy of the rail is pictured below. The balusters are slid over the connector to mate with the rail at an angle of 32.5 degrees. The ends of the rails have a threaded metal insert that will accept a fastener to secure it to the Newell posts. One end of the rail has a 16.25 degree compound joint followed by a mitered right angle return. The rail itself was made by laminating non-overlapping 4 foot long sections of bamboo plywood together (for a perfect match to the stair treads).

Although my college degrees are in Electrical Engineering, it is only because the field of Computer Engineering was in its infancy. My primary concentration was in logic design and computer architecture. Even the most advanced computers today are still based on the same basic building blocks that perform the logical operations of AND, OR, and NOT. When I was in grade school, these logic elements were constructed out of individual transistors. By the time I was in high school, they had become available on integrated circuits that offered multiple gates, shift registers, flip-flops, multiplexors, and a bunch of other more sophisticated functions. Pictured above is the collection of chips I assembled while in college so that I could quickly prototype my ideas. My first self directed design was a 16-channel logic analyzer which won me the Stearn’s Prize awarded to the outstanding student in electrical or computer engineering at Union College.

Alas, It has been more than three decades since I built anything from these parts and I decided that they would not be making the move to the River House. Jeanine and I are making a concerted effort to get rid of all of the things we have accumulated over the years but no longer use.

Today, I decided to make a timelapse video of a typical day in the shop. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, my camera ran out of both storage space and battery so only two hours were captured. The video lasts less than 2 minutes and shows the construction of seven Newell posts. Order of operations: Rip boards to 3-inch width, cut to length at the miter saw, move to the router table to create a lock miter joint along all edges (most time-consuming), return to the table saw to make relief cut in half the boards to prevent tearout, empty the dust collector at some point, dry fit the Newell posts and move on to routing and sanding the hand rail I glued up earlier in the day. Not shown, the other 6 hours of work before returning home to snow blow the driveway. Gotta love retirement?

Shoptimization continued today. First, I moved my tablesaw and jointer/planer 6 inches to the east. This small change permits me to machine 10-foot long stock which was not possible before. Second, I built a set of shelves for my cordless tools that are now located under the picture window. Moving them from their previous location also opens up the space where I plan to install a sink one day. Third, I consolidate all my tools on the north wall of the shop where they are close at hand to my assembly tables. Fourth, I located my drill press on the east wall and repurposed a portable shelving unit I made for my old shop for drill bits and accesories. When all was said and done, I moved every last thing in my shop except the bandsaw and miter saw. I am very happy with the final layout and do not plan to make any future changes.

The remaining bamboo plywood needed to complete the stair railing for the River House is scheduled to arrive tomorrow and I found myself with a free day. I decided to spend the time optimizing my shop, a process I call “shoptimization.” With six months under my belt, I had a very clear plan for the changes I wanted to make. First, I moved my router table to where the drill press used to be. I aligned the table height with that of the miter saw to take advantage of a free outfeed table. Second, I moved my “harware store” (small part cabinets with all manner of screws, nuts and bolts, etc.) from the north wall to the south wall. This freed up some prime real estate where I will locate more frequently accessed tools. Third, I moved my sanding station from next to the outside door to the corner where the router table used to be. This location allows me better access to the machine and is already plumbed for dust collection. Tomorrow, I will figure out where to locate the displaced drill press.

Pictured above are the angled ends of two 8-foot-long handrails. the first joint takes the diagonal rail back to horizontal and the second turns 90 degrees to mate with the Newell post. Each rail has 20 recessed holes on the underside angled at 32.5 degrees where the baluster will be situated. Each recess has a smaller and deeper hole drilled in the center where a 3D-printed baluster connector will be fastened with a screw. In total, each rail requires more than 60 machining operations and a dozen glue ups. A single mistake can render the entire rail unusable which makes for very stressful work. Fortunatley, these two rails came out perfectly and today they were treated to two coats of sealer and two of a protective finish. During the 2 hours of drying time between each coat, I installed a new fence on my table saw. I ordered the device back in September and have been patiently anticipating its arrival. All I can say, is that it was worth the wait and every penny I paid for it. I then cut down and fitted the original fence to my bandsaw and scrapping the piece of crap it was supplied with.

With all the work I have been doing on the River House, I have had little time for dedicated photography. The arrival of a small group of migrating common mergansers and a relatively warm day was the only motivation I needed to take a brief pause to spend some time outdoors with my camera.

Jeanine presented me with an odd request today. She wanted me to drill a couple of holes through the edges of a pair of sea shells so she could sew them onto a garment. I am sure there is a way to do this without destroying the shells in the process but I decided it would be far easier to glue a couple of loops to the back through which the thread could be passed. Jeanine was in charge of fabricating a superhero-themed outfit for “Island Woman”, one of her friends who is celebrating her 60th birthday.