well, you know what they say about all work and no play .... sam and i just returned yesterday from 8 days in montana. one out, one back, and one day, saturday, of rest. nice to have a holiday to recover today, before we both get back to work tomorrow. as planned back in july, we 'evacuated' vermont the day before the hurricane and only saw it as it happened on the internet.
the damage was incredible in vermont.
our house and shop are on high ground and there are no big rivers in dorset, so kit and i and the shop escaped with no noticeable changes. friends in other towns nearby were not so lucky. it will take years to get vermont put back together again even with the federal disaster aid that is heading our way.
click the pictures to enlarge them ...
we started on the missouri, floating with russ dobrzynski of
pro outfitters in craig. it was for us, a day of hard fishing in big winds, but we were able to land some good size missouri river rainbows, 18-20" long, but were unprepared for the serious physical effort it took to fish a big windy river for 8 hours standing in a drift boat. phew!
and, as soon as we got off the river we had to leave wolf creek and drive about 60 miles over an incredible road above (route 348) to lincoln, where we spent the night and next day at a friend's camp, fishing the grantiers, a spring creek tributary of the blackfoot.
it was a great cabin that was moved to the site from another part of the state, log by log. it was estimated to be from the late 1880's and was beautifully dovetailed and scribed.
nice front yard
the grantiers is a small spring creek full of feisty cuttthroats, and sam managed to land a good one in the afternoon.
we caught quite a few other small ones, which were about the same size as, but slightly stronger and more fun than our local foot long rainbows. it was challenging, technical, fishing and we had an excellent guide, chad harberd, also from
pro outfitters who walked us through the mile and a half stream and told us where to try and present our hopper flies. sometimes we got it, sometimes not. we all, including chad, missed opportunities at the cagey big browns that chad knew were in there. they were too fast and smart for me, but sam's cutthroat was the star of the show anyway.
that night, we moved on to philipsburg and the rock creek below.
we had a little rain, which chased off some of the other fisherman ... a nice size cutthroat above ... we then headed off to melrose, and the big hole river, about an hour to the south.
the next day, rather than fish the actual big hole (i hope to go back and float that one sometime), we fished a small tributary just out of melrose, which was beautiful, and reminded us of home, and again, sam caught the best one of the day, a nice 18+" brown.
on to ennis from there, and into the heart of the rockies ... breathtaking in every imaginable way. ennis is on the madison, and is definitely a fishing town with lots of friendly people and good food. coincidentally, there was a 'fly fishing festival' and there were boats everywhere. the river is big enough to handle them all so that you don't notice the traffic, and the fish don't seem to mind either. we had a great day with clayton paddie, of
the tackle shop in ennis.
we caught rainbows, browns and whitefish and one the of the bigger rainbows coughed a sculpin into the landing net, which is a sort of prehistoric looking thing that he had apparently recently eaten.
a nice brown
another one with the proud fisherman
and sam and clayton again here with the sculpin rainbow ...
the sculpin
we floated about 10 miles in clayton's
extremely comfortable sit down driftboat, and took out at the mcatee bridge. after another night in ennis, we drove up to bozeman for the flight home sunday morning.
interesting architecture in all these towns.
we had a little time to kill saturday afternoon, so we drove about an hour east to livingston, thinking we might cast a few into the yellowstone to make it six, but we were fished out and took a pass.
there were great galleries and a thriving arts community in livingston, so all was not wasted, plus the drive was incredible. shortly, there will be more photos of scenery, fish and architecture on
my personal facebook page. send me a friend request if you want to see them ... back to work tomorrow ...
we finished one up yesterday that we've been working on for a while. it was good to wrap it up since we first started with our design work back in april. there were delays along the way while the stone was changed on the fireplace, which added to my work and required some additional site visits, but all in all, they look about the way i imagined them in my photoshop paste up below ... click the photos to enlarge them ...
here's the 'before' shot. the clients purchased this house last winter and remodeling started in earnest in the early spring ... sam made about 65 feet of new steel and wood railings for the stairs and the balcony; we made an expanding pedestal table in chestnut, and this pair of cabinets. nice job ....
here's my photoshopped mockup using a picture of a cabinet we built back in 2002 ...
the cad drawing showing the interiors of the cabinets
one of our first design issues was accommodating a tv that was wider than the space between the retracting doors. we made a couple of mockups using our standard sanus bracket, with different ways of mounting the bracket and decided on the 'sidewall' approach, which worked fine ...
we also had some fitting issues as the client requested that both cabinets be identical in width. after they changed the stone on the fireplace, that increased the width of the space and thus the cabinets, and brought a twisted spruce beam into play that was previously not an issue.
the tops and molding backer boards actually slid into a slot created in the masonry
we also had to revise our installation plan from a grouted board against the existing stone to a 'slot' created by the masons when they reset the facing. that made me define my spaces pretty exactly and while it was fussier to install made for an elegant look of the cabinets integrating into the whole fireplace surround ... looks great
while we were checking the twisted post, we also mocked up a paneled end, which is what you see when you come down the stairs.
tight fit; twisted beam; all ok in the end ...
we also had a kickspace heater on the job and had to integrate a design for the grill into our finished cabinets, as well as make the heater accessible from the top for later repairs.
so, a removable floor was installed,
and the drawers in the lower case are in a separate cabinet that slides in and out of the main cabinet.
lots of door parts, something like 85 or 90 pieces, plus the panels.
we finished and assembled everything in the shop before loading it up for the jobsite.
below you can see the way we accommodated the 46" tv in the 44" cabinet opening with the retractable doors....
and yesterday, we installed the 'turnstyle' hardware that arrived last week from england.
the finished interior of the left cabinet ... it's a wrap ....
with the big windows to the right, this was a hard project to photograph so i have included these two other images. the sunlight sort of emphasizes the 'orange' in the finish that is much more subdued in person. a challenging project, all in all .. below are a couple pictures of the original cabinets that inspired them, and here is a link to my website listing on them ...
