Time in the mountains

 If you've ever wondered why I love going to the NC mountains so much, this might explain it in pictures:

Yep, 110* when we left Raleigh, it did show 111* when we were on the highway

4 hours later and 3000 ft higher in elevation, only 68*. Amazing! I can't take the heat

Lena wanted to visit Foggy Pine Books after Tom Hanks did the super bowl commercial for them

Bigfoots baseball! Local small baseball games are the best

The Boone Bigfoot himself

July 4 fireworks at Sugar Mountain Ski Resort

Where else can you watch fireworks on a ski slope?

Out on a walk in Banner Elk

Just enjoying a cup of coffee on the back porch

It really is a magical place and I can't get enough of it up there in the summer.

Kitchen Shelves

 I got a call from a customer that previously bought some bunk beds, who needed some help remodeling the kitchen. They had maple butcher block countertops and wanted some live edge maple shelves to go with it. These turned out incredible. 

A stack o' maple ready to be dressed, sanded, and finished

Also made up some cabinet doors to match existing doors

Final cutouts done for the inside corner shelves

These little shelves were needed to replace some existing tiny shelves too

Now with more polyurethane

And here they are installed!! They provided the brackets, so I mounted them into the studs and got everything leveled. They fit like a glove and look fantastic.

Banner Elk Bunk Beds

 As we got furniture moved into the Banner Elk townhouse, it created an opportunity for me to build a lot more stuff. I started with a really cool quad bunk bed for the kids bedroom. It's got 2 fulls and 2 twins in an L-shape, I measured the back wall of that room and had only about half an inch to spare. Also, to be sure that there was enough room for grandmothers to get into the twins, I needed to move them forward. Again I measured the side wall to be sure I wasn't going to cover up a light switch or something. The void created by moving the bed I used to build in a nightstand. The end result is pretty neat. 

It always starts with a shitload of lumber into the shed

Started building the frames and cut all of the supports and slats to length

Assembling the frames

Assembling the supports

Rough layout of the finished product, full, twin, nightstand in the corner

All 4 frames

Assembling the bunks

Now with all 4 together and safety rails

Lena picked out the stain color and helped me apply

Loaded up and ready to head to the mountains. We also brought the fraud bed for the back porch

Installed! And my kids are super happy with them

So, 2 fulls, 2 twins, 2 happy kiddos. You can see how that room has a blocked off part where the chimney goes up to the roof, it created a space that I could fill with beds. There's no overhead light or fan in this room, so the light source comes from a lamp on one of the nightstands.

The first weekend we moved into the townhouse, this was in the first load of furniture that I brought up. I can't remember now if it was a thursday or friday - but I had to work a full, stressful day and only had one kid with me (the other was already up there with Kelley). After work we had to disassemble the beds, load up the truck, drive 4 hours to Banner Elk, then unload the truck at like 10 pm and build up these beds that night. Shortly after midnight I finished the assembly in place. Then we all 4 had to sleep in these beds, since they were almost the only furniture in the house at the time! But I can report that I slept like a baby after that. These are really comfortable beds and make a great use of the space

Glassing Graduate

 Back with more progress on my CLC Wood Duck 12' kayak! Today we need to get the top attached, then fiberglass the outside. After that it's final shaping and epoxy, then apply TotalBoat Lust varnish on the outside and attach the accessories.

Graduate still topless

Ready to for the last stitch & glue operation

Stitched

Top is glued on, time to fiberglass the bottom

Amazing how clear the cloth gets when you apply the epoxy

Take special care to overlap the ends

Yes I cut used chopsticks in half and use them to stir my epoxy in used yogurt cups

Trim the excess fiberglass cloth after the epoxy dries

Glass the top without cutting out holes for the hatch & cockpit

I trimmed the excess cloth after the epoxy dried, That did actually create some overlap where the top meets the hull, and that joint became watertight after applying some thickened epoxy anyway. After it was trimmed, this baby was ready for finishing.