Dear Bob Patty and Others,

It's has been just a bit over a week since my last Report, and the completion of the carcase for the camp kitchen seems a good place to take a break and update. I won't bore you with secrets of the joiner's art, but a hollow chisel mortiser for under $250 is a wonderful investment. Having two table saws set up, one for the tenoning jig, the other for the shoulder cuts of the tenons increases efficiency, and having five routers, each set up for a different operation doesn't hurt. Do I tread dangerously close to bragging?

The metal drawers are a stock size for industrial first-aid kits, and I was able to have them custom fabricated without internal shelves and with the handle moved to the latch side by the Merriam Manufacturing Company (www.merriammfg.com)) of Middletown, Ct. for under $20 each. They and the tin plated steel Emu boxes from Ikea should provide sufficient mouse-proof food storage. The slides for the metal drawers, utensil drawers, and ice chest are all full extension 100 pound test. The framing was constructed of kiln-dried 2x4 spruce, joined and planed, and the plywood is 9-ply half inch Baltic birch. Biscuit joinery was used on all the plywood carcase work, assembled with 1 5/8 inch stainless steel screws to eliminate the need for clamping while the glue dried.

In this age of compulsive gentrification, when waterfront camps of a bygone era are torn down to build McMansions, it tickles me to be building the anachronism of a non-electric camp. This kitchen-on-casters makes me smile. Its an amusing combination of compact design, accurate craftsmanship and funky materials. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeha! Hope all are well......love BSB

Posted by Bennett at 3:44 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, 25 March 2004 7:39 PM EST

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Camp Kitchen


Dear Bob, Patty, and every one else,

My winter project to get the camp kitchen built is under way. For those who havent seen the sketch, the idea is to build a unit on casters so we can have it when the building season resumes in the spring, and can move it around as we finish off the floors, walls etc. Eventually the sink will be hooked up to the septic tank, but to get started it will drain into a 5 gallon spackle bucket. Hot water for washing and rinsing dishs will be generated by a propane shower unit, and will be stored in insulated Coleman jugs over the sink. Drinking water will be in its own 10 gallon container over the food prep area. We will accomodate a 24 inch range when we get permanent propane hookup, in the mean time, we will use a Coleman propane two burner stove unit. Storage will all be in metal boxes, with three 22x 15x 5 1/2 inch pull out drawers with lids, and smaller Ikea storage boxes in cubbies. There is a 50 quart ice chest with a five day duration, also on full extention glides.

This description is not really for the architect who has reviewed the shop drawings, but for others who profess interest in my spam. I started the frame to which the casters attach and which holds together the three units that disassemble for transport and getting through the door. This was interrupteed by a trip to Connecticut to visit my son Barak, his wife Jenn and their new born son Baeden Samuel Blackburn. If any of you havent herard the news of Louise and my attaining grandparenthood..... there you go. Pictures and news updates of the baby and his family can be had by visiting Barak's blog: http://brocktoon.tripod.com/news/
If your computer doesnt read this as a link, you could always copy and paste.

I'll probably send a few more reports before this joinery project is finished. When we are traveling each weekend to build, the interval for Reports to the Architect was set.....this is a bit more arbitrarily divided, since I can work on it everyday.....yahoooo! But I do miss the old income and the making of woodchips. All in due time....love to all BSB

Posted by Bennett at 1:54 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 16 March 2004 6:21 PM EST

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Report to the Architect


Dear Bob Patty, et al,

Just to let you know the camp is still there, unmolested; unless one considers a "Kilroy was here" note from Fred and Norma Reker a molestation. They visited the week after we closed for the winter and had been there for the first floor platform framing.

We were able to drive as far as our driveway. The story we got from a nieghbor who was up on Klondike Rd was the town has been sending the road grader down the mountain after each snow storm to plow the half mile up to Wally Dolle's farm from Mass., because it saves on the chains, which wear out on the blacktop if they send the grader around through Clartksburg Mass to do the same half mile. Fine with us.

We snow shoed through 2 inch breakable crust covering soft powder. A lot of work for the thighs, but we made it to the top of the powerline cut. The weather was in the 40's and beautifully sunny. Saw an excellant concert of Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer at MASS MoCA on Saturday night and stopped at the Worcester Art Museum for another look at the Antioch Roman moasics on the way to visit our almost here grandson and his almost parents on Sunday.

I am working on the dimensioned drawings for the camp kitchen. I'll send you gray prints when I'm done. Spring and the resuming of Mountain Labor seems pretty close....love BSB

This entry was originally sent 10/5/03

Dear Bob, Patty, et al,

Thanks Bob for the phone consult on closing the project for the season. Vented tent camping in the frosty season is fine as a character building exercise for the Boy Scouts (or Marine boot camp), but it feels like a full season of building for the two of us. We managed to get a cabin at the Wig Wam, and for those who have never seen it I enclose a shot of the night view of North Adams from our porch there. For those who dont know the story, we found the property in Vermont by looking on the map for the area pointed to by a green meteor we saw from a porch of a cabin at the Wig Wam. We have a sentimental attachment to the place....not to mention that its cheap, and dry, and heated, and has hot showers, and an electrical outlet to plug the coffee maker into. Unfortunately they close at heavy frost as the water lines to the cabins are on the surface.

Breakfast at Linda's Cafe, the closest thing North Adams has to a diner, and we were on the mountain by 8:00 am Saturday. We got the kitchen roof watertight with 30 pound felt paper and the aluminun disks that can increase the holding surface area of roofing nails against wind. It started to rain just as we got to running the felt paper up the south wall as flashing for the tar paper. A blessing on your two foot overhangs, which sheltered us for this phase.The idea of carrying plywood up a 22 foot ladder in windy 40 degree rain was utterly without appeal, so we closed the south second story windows from the outside since the scaffolding was in place for the tarpaper, and we opted for keeping the blown snow out by nailing the 1/4 inch luan ply from the inside on the second floor. A bit of a compromise from what you had suggested on the phone, but Louise put tar paper on the window sills against snow build up. I thought of putting angled blocking extending over the sills and under the interior installed ply, but decided the framing could stand another six months of being wet, and I didnt want to withstand another six hours of being wet. The first floor we closed with the 5/8 ply that will eventually redefine the kitchen to porch cross gable transition. We used square drive screws as a precaution against interlopers.

Got back to the WigWam for hot showers , the start of the Cubs /Braves Game (anybody know who won?.....did I mention that the Wig Wam gets five statioins of poor quality color tv?) dinner at the Golden Eagle Restaurant on the Famous Hair Pin Turn and a World Music Funk concert with Atlas Soul out of Boston at Mass MoCA. Nice to have an excellent cultural center in the middle of a post industrial opportunity for gentrification like North Adams, Mass!!!!! I was even seen out on the dance floor shaking my lower back scoliosis, but I was unable to duplicate the moves of the Morroccan belly dancer who started the concert out with instruction on The Moves. Scarey that thought , huh?

Seep again at the Wigwam and home by 2:00 pm Sunday. By the way, the Wig Wam is for sale if any of you venture capitalists out there are looking for an opportunity to participate in the gentrification of North Adams. $495,000 gets you a gift shop (but not the inventory) a inhabitable family house, five cabins, and 32 acres with an incredible view. Handiman special (you are forewarned).

I will close this years final installment of our Adventures in building a Work of Architecture, with a thanks to all who visited and or helped with the building and building of our spirits.........Waring, Audrey, Fred, Norma, Ken, Espe, Fons, Ellen, Barak, Jenn, Chris, Eric, Daina, Bob,Claire, Madeleine, Harry, The Architect in Person, Martin, Shirley, Katherine, Bill, Anne, Mary Jane and the lone Quad rider who we hope gets scraped off a tree somewhere else. We have appreciated the positive feedback that has come from many of you in response to these spam installments. I am looking foward to resuming my sculpture after this sabbattical of six months, and to six months of chiropractic adjustments so I'll be ready in the spring again....love to all....BSB


ps nice to see the architectural lines without all the scaffolding , Huh????

This entry was originally sent 9/21/03




Dear Bob Patty et al

Nine nights at the Wigwam cabins overlooking the North Adams valley.....far enough above it all to see the beauty and not the decrepitude. Had a great visit/reunion with my brother Waring and sister Mary Jane. Saturday they set out as a team to tackle the vertical wall blocking with smoo and screws and ply scraps. A time consuming and thankless job for which they earn a huge THANX! Sunday we did the road trip thing with the Shelburne Museum as a goal....A day of dead horses and rainbows....you would have had to be there......Great quilt show and a treat to see it in the company of one with an eye and hand for the craft and art.

Monday MJ had to catch her flight from Albany back to Denver and Louise and I resumed work with an altitude....attitude??? When you're past mid century in age it is inadvisable to do roofing on a two foot three inch overhang with a bracket that extends three feet. I will stop there.....I have had enough of the reality of rain tarps scaffolding construction, deconstrucxtion and reconstruction to last a life time....and it aint done yet. Enough said. The shingles look great....thanks for the suggestion. That is the only nice thing I can say about the process of roofing.....three of the six roofs are done, and they are the high, big ones. Amen

Didnt get to the reworking of the kitchen roof into crossgable connection for the eventual porch.....that will have to wait for next trip. I will let the eyebrow roofs go for awhile as they have Ice and Snow Membrane on them and dont let water in the house anyway. We put ISM under all the shingles......will its action as a vapor barrier necessitate gable end vents of the uninsulated part of the attic? You have said no before, but I didnt know of the membrane would change the rules. I despair of getting the structure water tight before winter....Tar paper installed from ladders and windows seem far off......far far off. That may just be roofing burnout contaminating my normally sunny disposition........Louise has to work next weekend so we wont go back for a couple of weeks....I have to work tomorrow, so I will end this. Louise doesnt have to work tomorrow because its her birthday, but somebody forgot to inform the Environment East office that its a National Holiday.....love to all BSB (with the sunny disposition

This entry was originally sent 9/1/03


Dear Bob and Patty and other victims of the bulk mail syndrome.........

Long Weekend???Huh!!! A confusion over the vitality of Louise' car (purported transmission problems....intermittant.....wouldnt misbehave for the tranny guys) left us uncertain we would have a vehicle as the truck was promised to Chris for his move to Nork City and grad school at NYU. The earliest we could get a ferry was noon Saturday, by the time we realized we would have the car. Needing only to cut plywood and nail and screw , we loaded minimal tools including the generator on the car with the bed box, LL Bean Tent, suitcase, propane stove, food boxes, and oh yes two middle aged roofers.

We stopped at an RV store to gather information about low water consumption RV toilets (The manufacturers of the Storburn incinerating toilet do not respond to questions about waste transfer to the burn chamber, and we are thinking of eliminating the through the roof vent for that unit). On arrival at North Adams, we finally checked out the summer installation at Mass MoCA....ten installation artists using stuff from the collection of SPNEA (OK...the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities). Moderately interesting....I guess I am unmoved by mainstream art these days.

Got to the mountain, recollected the tent drill, had dinner in the camp structure, had a campfire, admired Mars in the context of a pristine Vermont sky and fell into the unequivocal splendor of a queen sized air mattress with wool blankets and down quilt...Good thing...it must have dropped into the 40's over night.

Next two days we did roof plywood.....not the stuff of epics, except on a level of personal growth and terror management. More architecturally offensive scaffolding growths all over the place.....Rain on Monday, off and on, and we packed out with only the last two pieces of ply left to go on the South high roof. It is easier to work on the roof itself with roofing brackets and planks than it is to start at the eve with a 24 inch overhand and a 36 inch scaffolding support.....God bless the false sense of security a railing gives....not that railing construction is all that much fun....However the view from the peak is to cut down trees for!

Saturday night we took another long weekend indulgence and went to a concert at Mass MoCA. A Texas Swing trio (fiddle, f hole guitar and double bass) The Hotclub of Cowtown, who did a sort of Django Rhinehart, Stefan Grapelli, George Wills synthesis thing, which was great fun. We needed a break from the sense of relentless marathon that a seven day construction week creates....speaking of which I an due to be on Gardiner's Island tomorrow which means an early start, and normal bed time is gone by an hour or so...... so I bid all of you a fond farewell, and welcome to autumn, which hits Vermont first.....love BSB

This entry was originally sent 8/25/03

Dear Bob, Patty, et.al,

Our last weekend of having the student apartment in North Adams was graced by Friday night visits from Barak and Jenn as well as my cousin Martin and his wife Shirley, who were on the way to Elk Lake Lodge in the Adirondacks from Winchester Virginia. Barak was an eager scaffolding monkey for the morning on Saturday, before heading off to the Williamstown Theater Festival. Martin cut some plywood and helped nail off the sheathing on the bumpout.

It is nice to see the interior space of the bedroom defined by the sheathing.....not that the framing isnt likewise a thing off beauty. We set up for sheathing the roof, wished for thatever medication exists in the cosmos that offsets fear (Martin says that White Light works) and got the first two sheets on ply on the roof. Got all the cooking , sleeping and clothing stuff from the apartment packed and loaded in the truck, as well as the generator and the construction impliments we have been storing in town and made it home in a heavy vehicle by 10pm.

Next week we are back to tenting.....we thought it might be interesting to set a tent in the upstairs.....just to wake up in the camp structure.....Monday=zombie.....love BSB

Thiis entry was originally sent 8/18/03


Greetings all of you Report to the Architect addicts

Sorry to have not had a report last week....the weekly marathon construction burnout syndrome leads to stupid mistakes like forgetting the camera. A week ago we were graced by a visit by Daina asnd Eric Newman, and Eric proved himself a capable scaffolding and ladder monkey on Saturday and we got plywood on all the overhang corner brackets as well as on the eyebrow roofs over the East windows. While the high scaffolding was in place on that wall we started the trim on the eyebrows and the main roof rakes.

This weekend we carried on with the trim, finishing the high rakes, and then breaking the scaffolding and building a new scaffol;ding placement that allowed us to work the lower eyebrow roof. Our factory bolt through red scaffolding brackets only extend three feet which is the same as the projection of that roof, so ....build we must for a better Vermont. It is worth noting that when trusting site built scaffolding support, it helps insure longevity of life to make sure all the joints are well nailed before climbing out to load the system........

It seems like little progress gets made at this stage of the project, but a great deal of energy goes into all the scafolding placements. This past weeekend we worked off of four different installation sites. The trim on the roofs where it intersects with neighboring roofs just fell where it did....I didnt calculate roof placement with trim alignment in mind , and the resulting stagger seems to have an okay rhythm.

Our accomplishments for the past threeday weekend were the East wall trim, plywood on the kitchen roof ( We did the adhesive and smoo and ply scrap blocking detail with the screws projecting into the insulation space rather than into the roof ) We took a break on saturday and drove to Nork City in torrential rain to celebrate our friends Ken Nadle's 60th on a dry rooftop near Columbia Univ,then home again by 1:00 a.m. Sunday we set the scaffolding to start sheathing the bumpout and west wall. Torrential rain (for which we had not done a tarp adjustment) cut us short and we packed out, made a ferry reservation, rather than drive through the city again, had a hot meal in the student digs ( rare, that event) and enjoyed an alternatate drive down rt 112 in Mass.

Hope all of you are well...love BSB

This entry was originally snet 8/3/03


Dear Bob, Paty, et. al/

I dont really have alot of heroic nerrative on this weekends adventures in loftiness. Trust your scaffolding system, take your time when at altitude, and always move the big tarp as the first of the weeklends invocations to shelter. Droopy tarps give a certain oriental flavor to the structure. We did get the east wall plywood up and the two eyebrow roofs over the windows, but its a bit hard to see with the scaffolding and railing pyschosis blocking the view of the structure itself. The roof pieces were cut in Peconic during the week and brought North. It took two scaffolding setups, the second of which we left to finish off the high east wall work, namely ply on the eyebrow roofs and the roof line trim on the east gable and the eyebrows.

Next week we order enough ply to finish the wall and roof sheathing . We'll get the cedar for the rake trim as well. I dont expect to actually finish the ply untill the mid month weekend when we have three days.I have ordered the CertainTeed Carriage House shingles in red. I told the lumber yard I ought be able to get to the roofing about Labor Day weekend..

Love to all.......BSB

This entry was originally sent 7/28/03


Hi Everyone

Just got off the phone with Bob Harper, so I dont suppose I am really writing this to him as much as everyone else. Stayed home week ago, but cut all the pieces for the main roof overhangs and brought them with us, along with a 20 foot aluminum OHSA rated (500 lb) staging plank. It doesnt feel like we got a whole heck of a lot done with only three little roof extensions.....but when one adds in the hieght and terror factors for post 50 year olds impersonating scaffolding monkeys.....well its good to have that subsystem finished. Much of the work is in setting up scaffolding and moving it.




We were able to relax a bit. It didnt rain, and at the end of the day on Saturday we had clean clothes in which to relax and enjoy a campfire and mountain dinner. Had lunch about 2:00 on Sunbday looking out the anticipated windows, packed up and came home.

For anyone interested in visiting, we will be up every weekend until Labor day. We will not have our student apartment for the Laborday weekend itself.

Next weekend we tackle the East (verrrrrry tall) gable end with plywood and the eyebrow roofs that cap the windows, that will complete the exterior framing of the main structure.

Best to all of you, scattered across the globe...love BSB