Hardwood is BOSS

In a world of hardwood vs. plywood, hardwood is boss. One already knows this, and wouldn't one love to use hardwood all the time if one could afford it. It's just so beautiful. With some stain? Fugeddabout it.  I think I will make out with hardwood. In a way I kind of did yesterday, walking around Saranac Hollow Woodworking Shop & Adirondack Hardwood, wiping a dab of spit on different cuts to see how they might change color or shine with a coat of stain.

We found out about Hal and the boys over at Adk Hardwood from my folks' builder, Roger, who stopped by for coffee the other day.  Dan and I are choosing to elongate our build project in the name of craftsmanship to assemble custom cutting board counter tops.  Strips of wood glued together in some sort of cute pattern will be installed in the kitchen as the main countertop to sink the sink into and hold the stove; the other countertop will be a pull-out dinette that hides under the bed when you don't need it. The whole thing is genius and of course cute. And we gotta pump out a lot of genius ideas these days to counteract the silly ones we have come up with during this project.

The first thing I did when I walked into the shop was ask them where their scrap pile was. They obliged us with heaps of awesome cuts from their scrap corner--curly maple, poplar, something they referred to as "fake mahogany" I think it was called sapele, oak, and some pine--for under $30 total. The car smelled like your favorite uncle all the way home. 

We also made a short stop to pick up the lastest edition of Fine Woodworking magazine, the "Joinery" edition. Thrilling reads for those who fancy cabinet making, trimming their mustache, wearing sweaters with geometric designs on them, and other avuncular domestic sports. (Actually this publication is fantastic.)
-Delilah

Lighting scheme

Ordered a bunch of lights today. This was after visiting a bunch of lighting showrooms in Albany (besides the box stores). I was surprised we could even visit a showroom these days. Has anyone ever done this, visited a lighting showroom?  They are some of the creepiest buildings you will ever drive up to. The windows are blacked out. Doesn't look like anyone's gonna be alive when you walk in. The showrooms delivered a moderately less creepy actual interior: store clerks who haven't spoken to a real human being in weeks, are startled by visitors, can't find their words, and then when they do they wont let you leave, tell you they had an aunt/uncle/grandchild/friend/mother who also refurbished an RV and drove across country, and did I know you can mount a flat screen TV in there no problem?  I sure do. No matter how dusty and crusty these people and these stores were, though, I had an urge to unite with them. Nothing in them was of any use to me because we need lights that can run off marine or RV-grade 12 volt DC batteries, not normal house AC current.  But, giving in to the jabber jaw of a lonely storeroom salesperson was a type, however minuscule, of emotional investment in the Ma&Pa side of the independent vs. conglomerate sales competition.

We are going with LEDs and I'm glad I got to see some in action.  LED stands for "Light Emitting Diode" and they are a whole different type of light, I tell ya. Hard to gauge with any basic imagination skills just how many and how much of that kind of light you will need. 10 diodes per head with 4 heads?  A reading light with 4 diodes or 16?  Under counter lights? Recessed lights overhead that will be further away and need to be brighter?

Trying to get a bearing on a guestimation method, my folks and I stood on top of stools and pointed flashlights this way and that and sometimes at each other.  That made us howl. It was a sloppy way of figuring it out. We found an LED flashlight rated at "25 lumens" and there weren't any lights I was looking at online rated less than 100 lumens. (Oh, that's the other thing: What is a lumen? How does my human brain use that as a unit of

measurement?) The brainstorming went like: "Ok so if I stand here and shine the light, and you hold that book, now imagine this light 5 times brighter. . .can you read that sentence easily? Now try to imagine a night without the moon, will you need two lights or one to chop a carrot in kitchen?"

Here's what I settled on:
(2) light bars, one 24" for kitchen and and one 12" in the back for ambient
(4) 3.2" 120 Lumen recessed ceiling lights, one over driver's/one over passenger seat and two in the cabin area over the pull-out dining table.  (These were ordered from the self-proclaimed "RV capital of the country": Elkhart, Indiana.)
(2) bendable/flexible snake lights installed on the wall above the bed for reading (rear most light can also be bent towards the back for Gear-age lighting).  Each will have its own switch.  Said and done, only spent $130.  -Delilah

In case you forgot, Shiloh is still cute.

Back to work! (Happy New Years/Bon Anne 2014!)

Took a bit of a ski break to catch up on our powder skills, but now we're back!  Here's what went down in 30 seconds or less:

1. Skied for 7 straight days and now we have thunder thighs.  Off-piste is boss!
2. Hung out and ate cheese with Daniel's family all over Europe, including challenging his father to a "Daileiboo " (pronounced die-lee-BOO) match (think: volley ball on a make-shift tennis court played by juggling and passing a soccer ball).

3. Successfully resisted the waffle craze in Belgium but wished we hadn't.
4. Ate a lot of Nutella.
5. Tried to buy a pair of Europants but couldn't find any.
6. Watched the Hobbit 2 in 3-D.
7. Got Nutella taken away from us at the security checkpoint at the airport.

It's been a few weeks away from the project, and it's a whole new year.  As we drove the 2 1/2 hours from Albany to the Northcountry last night and rambled right into our usual Sprinter brainstorming, we weren't able to throw out exact measurements of proposed fixtures just from memory like we were used to.  '18 inches on the pull-out table. . . and the inside depth of the coat cabinet is 14 inches, so that means. . .oh well if two storage totes stacked on top is max 4 feet, then you have 2 inches left for the slide mechanism. . .'  etc, etc, etc.  Instead we were pulling blanks.  That made brainstorming difficult, but in the back of my mind I thought it is probably healthy to have let some of those robot minutia slip away.

Today begins Phase II of the Sprinter build.  (We brought Phase I to a close by completing the insulation of the ceiling, walls, and floor.)  We will be installing the bed platform, side panels, and storage compartments.  I will also be completing the back log of entries from before the ski spree.  Cheers, and welcome to 2014!  -Delilah