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″.
4″
8-1/4″
8-1/4″
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.
We are using a two-part hard wax oil to finish all of the cabinetry I am building for the new house. Jeanine has mastered all of the steps for prep and application. Working together we have applied roughly 2000 square feet of finish with another 1000 or so to go when we get our next shipment of plywood.
On the international soccer front, Nico scored a goal in the US match against Japan this morning with a very nice breakaway that he rifled into the lower left corner. Unfortunately, Japan scored twice for the win and Nico picked up his second yellow card in as many matches forcing him to sit out the game against Costa Rica. He returns tomorrow and then heads to San Francisco on Thursday to give a presentation for the Bionic Project. From there he will fly to Ecuador to climb the Cayambe Volcano. It is considered an active volcano, but its last eruption was from 1785 to 1786 making the risk from snowstorms, strong winds, and avalanches much higher than eruption. At 19,000 feet high, the summit is the coldest place on the equator explaining its Quichua name, “very cold place.” Meanwhile, Maya returns this evening from Seattle and Kyle is off to Cabo tomorrow. Apparently, I am the only one in the family who is not going anywhere exciting.
Nicolai is in Poland this weekend with the USA National Amputee Soccer Team. They are competing in the Amp Futbol Cup, a five-nation tournament featuring Poland, England, Costa Rica, and Japan. Team USA had a very unlucky draw and played the host nation in their first match and then a fresh English team two hours later. With a few key players unable to make the trip, the US squad struggled with Poland suffering a 2-0 loss. The match against England produced the same result although I suspect it would have been a much closer game had the USA not been playing with almost no rest after their first match. Videos of both matches can be viewed by following the links below.
A partial shipment of the locally sourced stones we will use for the hardscaping at the River House arrived today. The eight at the rear of the truck are 7-inch slabs cut from a single boulder. They will be used for steps from our great room down to a patio and then down to the basement walk-out level. The skid steer loader used to offload the stones could barely maintain balance due to the weight of the stones. I fully expected it to topple forward but somehow, the operator managed to keep it upright. On Monday, the remainder of the stones will be delivered and installation will commence. If I remember, I will set up my timelapse camera to capture the work.
Maya shared several images from her hiking adventure in the Olympic National Park. It has been 40 years since I was last there and her pictures make me want to return again. Today she moved on to Seattle where she visited the Chihuly Glass Museum and shared another beautifully composed photo.
On the home front, Jeanine has fallen ill with severe chills. She will see the doctor tomorrow but I am guessing she has Covid although two rapid tests she has taken so far came back negative. Out of an abundance of caution, she is self-isolating and I have spent the majority of the day away from the house.
For several weeks now I have become increasingly unhappy with the performance of my dust collection system. I have been systematically locating and sealing leaks in the fittings hoping that would improve performance. Today, the suction became so poor that I convinced myself that there must be a blockage in the main duct. I used a camera snake to investigate and found no blockage whatsoever. I finally checked the filter not expecting that to be the issue given how new it is. I certainly was not expecting to find it completely clogged with dust. It took 30 minutes with my compressed air gun to remove all the debris. When I restarted the dust collector, the suction was so powerful that one of my blast gates struggled to open under the pressure of the vacuum. One of the features of my dust collector, is that you can easily reverse the air flow through the filter to keep it from getting clogged. I have been doing this once every week or two. Going forward, I will do this at the end of every day. It only takes about 15 seconds.
This website is dedicated to sharing, with family and friends, the day-to-day adventures of the Calabria family.
