New Mantle

 I'm in the middle of this large project for a friend when he brought over a mantle that's been in a kiln for a few months. There were some pretty serious checks in there, it's very thick, and from the same tree as the rest of the furniture I'm building for him. This mantle turned out incredible, I'm really happy with it and can't wait to see it on the wall.

These are bench tops for the kitchen table I'm building for him. Cool radius corners

Shaped, planed, and sanded

Really cool defect where this branch pulled out

Tons of large checks/cracks in the top and some spalting on the back

Big checks in the bottom as well

checks got filled with epoxy, so did that cool burl

No idea why the Old Masters finish left all of these black spots, but I had to sand all of that off to get it clean.

Finished product

This mantle turned out super cool. It started rough cut, so I had to cut it to size first, then plane and sand everything to a finished look. I used some TotalBoat epoxy to fill in all of the checks & cracks that came out of the kiln, also exposed a really cool burl on top and some spalting on one side. 

Taylor loved it. I'll post a picture of the finished product once it's installed.

New Beds

 I ran an ad on craigslist again, this time specifically targeting the hanging daybeds just to see if I could get any interest. My plan is to sell enough furniture to pay for the building supplies for the Boone house, and since I need to come up with about $35k, getting $800-900 for each of these beds will really put us on a nice start for that. 

Immediately, I got 2 responses, then nothing after that. The first response was very enthusiastic, and turned out to be money fraud. She wanted to send a cashiers check in the mail, then have her moving company come pick up the bed. Turns out the check came in for more than the original sale amount, and I was supposed to send the difference (about $1k) to the movers before they would come pick up the bed. Kelley made a copy of the check before depositing, and went down to the bank later to find out that it was a fake. Literally in the morning I was trying to pay the movers, she found the fraud. We were only seconds away from being out over a grand. In the end, I built a bed that I would have to sell to someone else, there was no buyer or moving company, just the fraud. 

The other response was a legit guy in Charlotte who wanted to surprise his family for Christmas. He was fantastic, and I built a really cool bed from hickory with cupholders and wine glass slots. 

it always starts as a pile of boards

then rough cut to length to start building the frames

Big pile of hickory and some oak to get started

Frame is put together and I have some 6/4 white oak shaped and attached to the bottom of the frame.

Start by forming the corners, these were 19" long in the front and 23" in the back

Form the arms to be level, and notch around anything that you need to. These have to go under the back as well.

unique notches around the back

This is the basic frame. Start with arms and the back, then fill in the rest of the wrapper. I wrapped the front already here.

then add all of the verticals and spacers in between

Add stain and topcoat an this one is done!

I don't always finish the back if it won't be visible once installed. Since I didn't know the install here, I did it anyway.

I built this one out of white oak. The frame is construction pine 2x3's and furring strips from Lowe's, but the visible parts are all some white oak that I had laying around. This is the fraud bed. I have some 1x6x16' white oak boards that have been air drying in the front yard for a while and they are good to use now, this bed took 2 of them. First I cut each piece to the length that I need, then rip it to 2.5" wide and get it through the planer. There are 2 pieces that make up most of the components so I can rip both of them out of one section of oak. So it's your basic grip it and rip it, then once I get plain components everything gets the belt sander 80 and 120 grit, then finish nailed onto the frame. Once assembled, sand it all again with 180, 220, and 320 grit palm sander. Then I finished it with a wipe on stain from Old Masters and topcoated with Ascend Exterior for a great finished look and long lasting protection.

This was a fun build, and eventually I did sell it to a great family!

This time it worked

 We made another trip up to Boone, this time with only 2 lots to check out. The really, really good news is that this time we made an offer and it was accepted! We closed right before Christmas. I'm going to post a lot about the house I want to build there, and of course document the entire process. I was hoping this lot was going to be nice, because it looked great on paper. We got up there, and wow. This is really happening.

We stopped for a photo op at the big waterwheel

The first lot, between 2 duplexes, big trees, steep hillside

Underground utilities on Willow Springs Trail

Has a nice parking at the turnaround. This is actually the end of the cul-de-sac

The driveway going up to the landing spot. This is on the land already

Up to the landing spot

It is wooded, but that hillside is not a steep slope

This build site was already cut in and graveled

Corner of the site, gentle rolling slope

This is the view going down the hill

it could be a really nice view

The truck is parked on the property line

It was cold up there

Up the slope at the next lot - that edge is right on the property line

This lot is 1.09 acres on the northwest side of town. Boone sits at 3300 feet elevation, our lot is at 4523 feet elevation. It's only a 10 minute drive to get downtown but that elevation means it's always going to be slightly cooler than town and have more snow in the winter. This is going to be amazing.

Graduation Present

 I finished the MBA program at UNC-Wilmington, and graduated in December. Overall I am very happy with the program, and finishing a masters degree has always been one of my life goals. Now, of course, I want more, like a masters or phd in economics to be specific. But I decided to buy myself a graduation present for this degree:

This is a CNC kit for a 12' hybrid wood duck kayak from Chesapeake Light Craft. They had a fall sale going on, so this bad boy was shipped to me directly. It might be a while before I can actually unbox it and build, maybe the spring. But I can't wait to build this boat and get out on the lake!

More land in Boone

 We made it up specifically to look at one lot. It's only a couple of blocks outside of downtown, prime location, terrible building site. 70% of the land is a very steep grade hillside (> 50%) and in a viewshed area, so not buildable. It goes down to a creek, and between the creek and the road is another steep hillside, but it's not nearly as bad. The most I could put on this 1 acre lot is a 500 sq ft house. We made an offer, it was not accepted our countered. Really wanted this one to work, but parking was sketchy and the price was too high for the size house I could build on it.

This waterwheel and stone wall are on the property

Kelley is down by the creek

This is the best building site. That wider area that goes down to the creek is the only place buildable

There is a fire hydrant on the property

Gets a little mushy down there

Not much water in the creek and it still makes an amazing relaxing sound

Steep walk back to the truck

I could put the shed here

This is still on the property - lots of road frontage

Power & city water/sewer on the property already

That's how much road frontage I'm talking about

Teenager approved for selfies

Cute neighborhood

We went to the outlet malls in Blowing Rock afterwards

I like the color of this house in BR

At the Christmas tree farm

We finished checking out the lot and made it down to Blowing Rock. Quick aside, the Bass outlet is closing, we got there at almost the last day. It first opened in the mid-90's when I was a student at App State, and my girlfriend at the time used to work there. Girlfriend is long gone, and now so is the store.

After the outlets, we made it to a local Christmas tree farm and picked up our tree for the season! Best thing to come out of the trip. The tree was beautiful and the guy cut it down right then so it was completely fresh.