Yeah... I think I remember reading the Farmer's Almanac and they predicted a cold winter. Still waiting on it.

Just jokin'

It got a little nip tuck here last night with my phone going off with nader warnings, I almost went down to the storm shelter in the basement. After they passed it was pretty nice. I even went out on the back deck and had a cigar. I soaked the tip in a little whiskey first. It was a nice smoke on a belly full of steak and taters.



By the way if anyone is interested in making these Adirondacks, after some thinking, I have figured out how to cut each chair out of 4 pieces of 5/4"x6"x8'-0" deck boards. So cost of materials is about $25 each. All you need is a band saw and a router and a sander. I jig saw might work, but it would seem to be a pain in the ass.

If someone is serious about building some, I could even loan out my templates if you promise to return them.



These are basically the same chairs that Norm Abrams makes here, except I modified the plans so that I could cut everything out of the 4 pieces of wood and nothing would be wasted...

https://www.popularwoodworking.com/adirondack-chair-plans/

Those chairs at any store run anywhere from $150.00 to $250.00. The ones made from composite materials are even more.

I’m very happy for you Irish, and all you have done there at your place. It’s very nice.

Dang irish ! I had the impression your place was larger than that !

He sure can do a lot with a little.

Well... We did stay there on the weekends for about 4 years during the building of the cabin. My next project will be enlarging that little place and turning it into a legit wood working shop and forge for making knives, axes, etc...

If I have discovered one thing throughout this project, that is that I like building stuff and I like working with wood.

I'm going to start buying better tools once I have a decent place for them.

There's an outfit in Cave Spring that makes really nice ones out of the composite.

https://evergreenpatio.com/collections/adirondacks

...but they don't give them away.

Since I'm about to tear down, or repurpose, or sell, or do something with my current shop and build a new larger shop, I needed a place for a temporary workshop. Well the only place was the 6' x 16" stand up space beneath my cabin. Unfortunately it is still piled up with all kinds of stuff that was generated during the cabin build. So the last couple of weekends I decided to tackle that mess. The goals were: Organization, Storage, better lighting, a floor of some kind and a work bench. This is what I started with:





I decided to use the free leftover upper kitchen cabinets as storage, build a wood storage rack, and rather than trying to figure out how to pour such a small floor out of concrete, just go to Lowes and buy some brick pavers and set them in sand over the vapor barrier. I think the end result is going to be perfect for what I want it for...

If u ever need to stay somewhere else for a couple weekends I'll let u do some projects n we'll call it even...i would say I'll cook but u prob wouldn't like it 🤣

Thanks for the offer...

Seriously... I really need to get started on some projects on our house in Trussville. I just haven't been motivated to work on any of those. We are talking about putting it on the market in the spring so we can pull all our equity out of it and reinvest that into something that will generate income. We will move into an apartment in town about 5 minutes from our offices for the 3 nights a week that we are in Birmingham.

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would give an update. We keep bringing more stuff up here from the house and have basically been living up here full time since March 12th. Due to the Corona Circus. Both of us have been working form home, with a few business trips thrown in there. We are blessed to have the opportunity to be up here through all of this and to be able to keep working. We are blessed and we thank God for it every day.

As yo can imagine I have had a little extra time to work on some projects around the cabin. I have been able to convert our bedroom loft to a pretty nice office space for me and made a nice little nook above the guest bedroom for Mrs. Irish. One of the things I haven't had the place for are my books, and I've been meaning to read more around here. I was resigned to putting all the books up high and access them with a library ladder due to a lack of wall space, but one day I was sitting in my office and came up with this idea to build book shelves that "float" between the loft hangers. I searched in the basement and found some pine T&G that a friend gave me and so I got to work...



I used some 1x12 for the ends and the shelves and the back are made up of 2 - 1x6 T&G with one edge of each ripped off flush.



The finished products installed...

My office:



Mrs. Irish's office nook:

Mrs. Irish has been wanting water up on the decks so she can easily water all of her plants, so I put my marginal plumbing skills to work... And now all three levels of the back deck have running water.

I was looking at that last hose bib on the upper deck one day and remembered that I still had our old demand propane fired water heated tucked down in the basement somewhere and decided why not build a shower up here. So after about 4 or 5 trips to Lowes in Ft. Payne trying to get all the right plumbing fittings and wood, we got to work. I had the vision and all she needed to do was follow the plan...



I figured if we were gong to have a shower way up there, we might as well have a tub too, so a quick trip to Tractor Supply in Ft. Payne and a tub we had!



But I couldn't just leave it at that. I insulated the tub with a 1" piece of rigid foam on the bottom and wrapped the sides with several layers of floating floor underlay that I had laying around. And of course you can't just leave it looking like that, so I ripped some of the fence boards in half, sanded them smooth, stained and sealed them to create sort of a wooden hot tub look...

The finished product:



I built a little wooden seat to hide the propane tank and a wooden box to hide the water heater:



The outside:



Of course you're wondering, "Hey Irish, what's the view look like while you are in the shower?"

It looks like this:

Million dollar view. I love the wood work around the tub, looking good! What kind of rifle is that hanging in your office?

Those office nooks are awesome!

It's a Winchester Model 1873 made in (I believe) the second year of 32-20 caliber production 1883. It was originally sold at Shipley Hardware in St. Louis, Missouri that same year if I remember correctly. So there's probably a pretty good chance that it was actually used by some cowboy out west. maybe bought it with it end of the drive paycheck in St. Louis.

Or at least I like to think that. I need to shoot it when I can find a decent source of ammo. It's about as nice of an original 1873 as you will find with all the original patina on it. I don't care for them that have been restored and reblued. To me that's erasing history.

I would love to find a companion 32-20 revolver.

They are nice little get away places, and it allows Mrs. Irish and I to have our separate office space during the day. You can't see it in the pictures, but I found a way to make a small workout space in mine with a bench and some adjustable dumbbells. Nothing like my gym at home, but It works surprisingly well.

I have a Model 1876 (man. 1883) in .40-60 that I need to shoot as well. I found ammo at a gun show, but 32-20 is much more common. $30 for 50 rounds online.