The Charm of Watch Hill and Muskromnet Beach

Watch Hill is a picturesque destination that has been a favorite among the upper crust for centuries. This beautiful spot offers breathtaking views, stunning sunsets, and a tranquil atmosphere that makes it an ideal getaway for those seeking relaxation and serenity. As we explored this charming area, I couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at its natural beauty. The rolling hills, lush green forests, and sparkling coastline all come together to create a truly special experience.

In contrast to Watch Hill, Muskromnet Beach is a more laid-back and welcoming destination that caters to a wider audience. This seven-mile stretch of sand attracts people from all over New England, who come to enjoy the beautiful weather, scenic views, and relaxed atmosphere. Whether you're looking to soak up the sun, take a leisurely stroll along the beach, or engage in water sports, Muskromnet Beach has something for everyone.

Our Project: Restoring a Historic Home

We began our project by exploring the front entry of the house, which featured a more formal setting compared to the steps that would be built in the back. The landing provided a beautiful spot to sit and take in the surroundings, while the steps themselves were designed to create a smooth and comfortable walkway. We laid out the rest of the walkway, taking into account the grading and terrain of the property. As we worked, our team carefully selected the stones for each step, making sure that they fit perfectly together.

The process of building the steps was a labor of love, requiring patience, skill, and attention to detail. We began by digging out the native earth and backfilling with gravel, compacting it to create a stable base. Next, we added a layer of sand to shim the bottom and achieve the perfect pitch for the steps. Finally, we installed the granite steps themselves, using a new and innovative method that involved a vacuum lift system.

The granite steps were sourced from a local quarry and featured a beautiful, smooth top surface with a rock-faced front. Our team carefully installed each step, using a combination of traditional techniques and modern machinery to achieve the desired results. We also added a few decorative touches, such as the vacuum lift system, which allowed us to easily adjust and level the steps as needed.

A Look at the Granite Used in Our Project

We took a moment to admire the beautiful granite that we had chosen for our project. This stunning stone was quarried from a local site and featured a unique blend of gray and white hues. As we examined it, I couldn't help but appreciate its natural beauty and durability. The granite would provide a beautiful backdrop for our new steps, while also adding a touch of elegance to the overall design.

The process of installing the granite steps was a fascinating one, requiring careful planning and attention to detail. We worked with a skilled team to select and cut each stone piece, making sure that it fit perfectly into place. The final result was a beautiful and functional step system that would provide years of service and enjoyment for our clients.

Installing the Steps: A Hands-on Look

As we continued our project, we began installing the steps in the back of the house. We used a combination of traditional techniques and modern machinery to achieve the desired results. The first step was carefully placed on top of the setting bed, which consisted of a thin layer of mortar. Next, we added the granite stone itself, using a vacuum lift system to easily adjust its position.

The process of installing each step required careful planning and attention to detail. We made sure that each stone fit perfectly into place, using a combination of sand and mortar to secure it in position. As we worked, our team carefully monitored the pitch and level of each step, making sure that they were perfectly aligned with the rest of the walkway.

A Tour of the Home

As we finished installing the steps, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment at what we had achieved. The home's front entry was now beautifully restored, thanks to our hard work and attention to detail. We had carefully selected each stone and step, taking into account the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape.

As we took a moment to admire our handiwork, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement at what this project had brought us. The home's new steps were not only functional and beautiful but also added a touch of elegance and sophistication to the overall design. Whether you're looking for a relaxing getaway or an elegant retreat, this historic home is sure to impress.

Our team worked tirelessly to bring this vision to life, using traditional techniques and modern machinery to achieve the desired results. The final result was a beautifully restored home with a stunning new entryway that would be the envy of all who saw it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday on this old house jeff installs some floating oak shells look ma no brackets that is rock solid so you want to give it a shot sure what happened to all this plumbing here i've never seen anything like this before there's already rot going on in that trunk so what have you found up here well a bit of a surprise it's really the classic plumber's lament nice how excited are you guys to see that extremely right you're going to have to choke down some dust first though before you get to that part along the way money's in the detail that is beautiful hi there i'm kevin o'connor and welcome back to this old house here in westerly rhode island where as you can see a lot has happened in the last couple weeks so the kitchen cabinets uppers and lowers are in and the island cabinets are in as well countertops are starting to go in and check out the coffered ceiling look at that beautiful detail this goes all throughout these two rooms and down here on the floors we have got random with white oak with a beautiful finish on those again all throughout the two spaces these base cabinets once they get doors we'll also get a wood countertop here that's going to be white oak as well and it's going to look a lot like the shelving on either side of the fireplace hey chris jeff how are you good kevin how are you all right so floating shelves all the rage these days yeah so we've got two inch uh white oak floating shelves and we've got sort of a three-sided section here and we've installed a cleat on the wall and that cleat will accept the dado in the back of the shelf so that you don't see any fasteners or no brackets are required and they don't want to see brackets because they want to sort of keep this clean look and you get it with the ship lap you know it's sort of a modern look so it makes sense this is the shelf right here yeah so what we got is we made uh two two pieces of uh five quarter oak and we glued that together so you got a nice big two inch thick yeah right then we ran this through the table saw with the dado blade and created that slot all the way through the back and the two sides so then after that to conceal the front we just applied a full size nosing all the way on the front so it looks like one piece of wood we've got holes pre-drilled already so are you these are pre-drilled holes are you lined up to hit studs uh actually no because we have uh three-quarter inch poplar on the back wall here attached to three-quarter inch plywood so we got an inch and a half of material back there all right so before we put the shelf in because these walls are finished painted and we've got a real tight tolerance i'm just going to put tape on either side so we don't mar that paint we'll start with the bottom shelf all right so these are labeled here we go right here bottom and this is the top okay so i'm aiming for that side bracket to go right there yep all right so this thing is very snug so we're going to get real close with it and we got to go in perfectly parallel otherwise it'll bind okay you on i'm on okay hang on hang on let me get a little faster i love how tight that fit is is rock solid looks good too huh yeah all right so that countertop will be the exact same material same thickness wow that is a great look i love it so now we gotta do the mantel all right so similar idea we want the floating look solid piece of oak a little bit thicker so we're at three inches now so a little different technique yeah that's the cleat that's a big cleat so we have a lot of mantle to hold up so what we did was we we cut out the back of the poplar there and we had a lot of solid blocking so we basically took that cleat and attached it back to a piece of three-quarter screwed through the back we actually put five inch screws so we have screws that all the way come to the front of this cleat and then we a lot of glue we put it back in against the solid block and we screwed top and bottom all the way across so you have a space to screw there and space to screw underneath here exactly so that and now this is the one that's really nice oh that thing's not going anywhere all right so let's take a look at what you're putting on it oh so you look at it and it looks like it's one piece of one piece of material and that's because it really is but we we v folded it so this this piece is actually two pieces mitered but it came out of the same board so that gives the appearance that it's the same piece of wood and what we're looking at i'll give you a little better example here you can see that we mitered these corners we mitered the back the front every every which way is mitered so that this will slip right over that cleat okay okay come to me about an eighth get that love that look right there jeff two i mean three shelves on that side three on this side mantle everything's floating great look yeah we got two countertops to go and then we're ready for a tv beautiful nice job now you can watch this old house and ask this old house anytime anywhere download our new app to stream full episodes to your tablet your tv and your phone binge classic episodes catch up on recent renovations and get step-by-step help projects all around the house best of all it's free the most trusted home improvement information is now available on amazon fire tv roku apple tv ios and android devices download the thistle house streaming app today you may recall that our ranch house had knotty pine in just about every room jeff and tom saved some of it but at least one room in this house will pay homage to that mid-century wall cover so it's a little beat up we've got to clean up the edges and resurface it but we're going to make it into a wayne's coat wall in one of the kids play rooms okay so you want to give me a hand sure all right so first thing i'm just gonna cut it to lengths that we can manage all right so you notice that the edges of this are pretty beat up so i think the first thing we'll do is run it through the table saw and get a clean edge on each side you're gonna save as much of this width as possible yeah we'll max it right out great all right now let's run them through the planer all right so knowing this stuff is uh really patinated over 50 years so i think the best thing is the best way to clean it up you know flatten the surface a bit if it needs it right looks pretty good yeah yeah that looks a lot better so next thing we'll do is we're going to set up on a router table here two different size rabbets so that when we put them together we end up with that nickel gap right so you have one that's wider than the other one pretty simple right so we'll start with the shallow one first so now we set up for the deeper rabbit and all we're going to do is advance this board over the thickness of our nickel gap so norm this is the uh kids playroom and this is the room we chose to do the uh wainscote treatment so we've got this set up so that uh this wall is plywood up to about 36 inches so we've got a good substrate to attach to so i think what we'll do is uh we'll just run a couple horizontal beads of adhesive here and then we'll just rely on the pin nails to keep it in temporarily narrow piece boy that just yeah it's right on the edge all right that's great so then to finish it we're gonna put a paint grade cap right on top there conceal that and uh this will get painted white the base will get painted white and then we're going to whitewash the pine and then this will be paint all right it's going to look great when it's done and it's a good use of old material yeah want to tackle all your home improvement projects with confidence join this old house insider a new streaming service from this old house the iconic emmy-winning series that inspired a generation of home enthusiasts stream over 1 000 episodes of this old house and ask this old house commercial free watch it all in the this old house app and join live online q and a's with our experts best of all you can try insider free for seven days to join go to this old housemembership.com this year's apprentices catherine and deshawn are taking a break from the rest of the project for a two-week trip up here to maine but it's not a camping trip they've come to a special school that teaches everything from conventional home building to timber framing the shelter institute is a school that teaches how to build smart energy efficient homes this afternoon what we're going to do is illustrated nicely on page 121 in the notebook mary who apprenticed for us on our last rhode island project became an instructor here last year there we go mary this is a big treat for us to come up here and find you working at the institute and you've got a bit of a history with this place yeah i do so i took a two week homebuilding course here a couple years ago and took a timber frame course here actually about a month before i came to apprentice for you guys right and then you spent two three months with us on the job site how did you end up back here so i actually got an email from shelter shortly after i got home to mississippi that they were looking for a timber frame intern so the timing just worked out perfectly you jumped on it huh yeah now that you're here what are you doing every day what are your responsibilities um so a lot of days i'm here in the shop we build custom timber frames um we also teach timber framing so we build structures like this one here and what am i looking at how do you describe this so this is a 24 by 24 post and beam structure that we build during a five-day class built by students very cool so do you love it i mean i do i love it so much it's a perfect combination of artistry and buildings so when we met you had your cake business yes very accomplished very successful in that but you told yourself you wanted to be in the trades how does it feel to sort of met that goal yeah yeah really fulfilling it's really nice too that teaching has been a part of that i'd never dreamt i would have gotten the opportunity to do that as well so you had mentioned that one of the first things you did when you got here was ended up on a job site for a timber frame addition yes how well did jeff sweener prepare you for that i know what very well um it was nice coming from two and a half months on a job site in rhode island to the job site here i definitely had the gear for it and then you have the attitude i did i did you know working with all those yankees i toughen you up that's awesome yeah and now we've got two new apprentices catherine and deshawn they're here yes uh you see them are thrilled to have catherine and deshawn here yeah and you're now part of that sort of continuation of the whole thing how does that feel great great it's definitely fulfilling you're gonna treat them well for us teach them how to really absolutely awesome well congrats man we're glad you found your place thank you so much case you have located the institute in a beautiful spot this is awesome tell me about what you've got here the institute started in 1974 during the first oil crisis teaching people to design and build energy efficient homes and that was the real emphasis at that time we've evolved quite a bit through the years and today we take a more holistic look at the entire building we start with building driveways move into foundations framing systems talk about wiring and plumbing all the details that would culminate in a house that someone would love to live in and who are you teaching and what's the curriculum like we're giving you an overview and then we're going to do we have people that have just retired that are looking to move into the next phase of life we have people who are between jobs we have people who are thinking about building a house and they are from all walks of life in all different parts of the country all different ages it's amazing to me every class the range of people that are there and and also the reasons that they're here do be conscious of how much these building materials are obvious they want to understand what what's going on in their house you know when they when the lights go out they want to know why and what to do to fix it when they get an ice dam in the winter time again what's going on there what can we do to fix that so you have two of our apprentices with you what's their curriculum like uh it's very busy so they'll be starting each day around 7 30 and not finishing till about 7 30 pm usually we start out in our shop with a more hands-on setting and then we'll move back up into our classroom it's definitely intense but i like it because it's not just like a abc123 on building it actually forces you to analyze things a little bit more when making your decisions and building a property or home all day long you are creating something and you get that feeling of instant gratification and at the end of the day you have created something that's very real when i came to the first day they gave me the feel that i can already accomplish what's coming to me like telling me that everything that i'm going to build is going to be something amazing it's going to be something spectacular but there's rules i've been waiting for this course it's very important to me and just because it's in my field and wanting to expand what i know in the building industry i want to be able to take as much as i can from this and leave filled with like a 100 competent that i could go out and do this myself thank you for what you do here at the institute and have done with your family for so long and thank you for the invitation to join you thanks kevin and for taking care of our apprentices it's been a pleasure this was the house of joshua babcock a businessman a doctor and a major general in america's war for independence babcock was a friend of benjamin franklin and his house is one of those special places where you can accurately say george washington slept here linda chaffey is one of the trustees here at the house linda nice to meet you good to meet you i'd love to hear about the house built when 1734. you know when it was built george washington was only two years old so it's been around a long time and built for who it was built for joshua babcock he is uh one of our very famous early citizens he was a founding fellow of brown university the first rhode island graduate from yale he did a little bit of everything so we're very proud of joshua and does the house that he built reflect his stature in the community it does it's um qualifies as a mansion in this era has very high ceilings for the time you know anybody who could afford enough fuel to keep these big rooms warm had to be wealthy high ceilings we have wide board floors we have lovely woodwork our corner cupboard is beyond compare and the front hall is just gorgeous with its railing that goes up and the newel post is just a work of art in itself it's just excellent so we like this house because it captures the history of westerly in the 1700s the 1800s and with our new granite museum it takes it into the 1900s so somebody who comes here gets a broad view of history in westerly so good construction has lasted over the centuries it has and it's still telling stories thanks to your guys efforts yeah we're trying we're trying well thank you very much for uh thank you for coming to see us absolutely 130 years after the babcock house was built wesley became known for something else tourists victorian homes sprouted up and celebrities escaping newport's spotlight hid behind westerly's hedgerows clark gable and henry ford were residents and today so too are taylor swift and conan o'brien jack nice to meet you how are you i am well i appreciate you picking me up and showing me around well this is a little gem of a car you have here yeah just to take people from the train station to the hotel and what is it this is a 1913 model t depot hat wow so train station the hotel was uh says a lot of people came here as tourists to visit this area the watch hill went from having a lighthouse and farming to large hotels steamboats and then it became a cottage colony and what are we at now we're coming down to watch hill point and in front of us is the lighthouse well jack you've got a beautiful spot right here i really appreciate you showing us around and bringing out the old beauty for it well thanks thanks for coming if watch hill is for the upper crust muskromnet beach is for the rest of us this seven mile stretch of sand attracts people from all over new england i think i know the answer but what's the attraction it's the water it's the beach it's the it's the great times it's the memories it's the experience we're just it's a great a great section of rhode island and coastal rhode island our project house is two miles directly up the hill from here a nice bike ride in the summer hey john hey good morning jen good to see you good to see you too so we're starting the steps today we are starting the steps today um this is the front entry to the house a little more formal than the steps that are going to happen in the back of the house right here we start with the landing there's going to be a couple of steps here we've laid out the rest of the walkway we have three more steps in this location that'll match those and this is going to be the blue stone walkway all the way down it looks like you use a couple less steps than i had on the plan right we had to take into account the grading so now we're moving the stone into position the guys are going to put some mortar on top of the block of the block here right to create a setting bed and we score the bottom of the tread in different directions there's no particular pattern what we want to do is create some depth so that the mortar will push up into this and help it from shifting laterally in the winter time that makes sense it's just like pottery so right now we're getting ready to put the uh the glue on the bottom of the of the tread and that's a thinner mixture than the thicker setting bed you could really see the difference it's it's a little more liquid right they're setting it they bring it to that line we talked about it's going to go right in perfectly so what about that granite that's out back let's take a look all right hey good morning shayla hi john hi jen good morning good morning hey we're installing steps for you today we started out front now we're going to start in the back here with the westerly granite steps and these are the ones that we saw in the quarry and being cut nice smooth top tread surface rock face front they're beautiful the way we install these steps is we dig out the native earth we backfill with gravel we compact that gravel we add a little sand so that we can shim the bottom get the pitch correct set the first step so now that we're ready to install the second step we're going to use this contraption here this is a vacuum lift it's a new way that we use to install heavy steps like this instead of the old way which would have been to use a couple of slings and what happens is this is connected to our excavator and we swing it into place almost like a crane and set it down now it uses a vacuum suction system and if there's a problem with the stone or it needs some kind of adjustment we can very easily pick it back up add a little more sand level it out set it back down i have a question so you said the the stone piece is about 5 600 pounds yeah when they were delivered um they said they were each were about 600 pounds okay so how many pounds does this one lift so this particular unit will lift 1400 pounds so we're well within uh the range because this is a lot safer too because no one's gonna have their fingers underneath the stone as we're pulling straps out like we used to okay and that looks perfect great thank you it's deep enough that it's comfortable but it's not too much because you want the right cadence okay walking up the step so you want to give it a shot sure that's perfect it's more of a relaxed entry in formal entryway so we had to do from point a to point b the slope also dictated the length that we had to stretch it to right so and you wanted westerly granite we did i absolutely love these yeah so i am excited about this and the front's going to look great so let's keep on going sounds good to me thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feedtoday on this old house jeff installs some floating oak shells look ma no brackets that is rock solid so you want to give it a shot sure what happened to all this plumbing here i've never seen anything like this before there's already rot going on in that trunk so what have you found up here well a bit of a surprise it's really the classic plumber's lament nice how excited are you guys to see that extremely right you're going to have to choke down some dust first though before you get to that part along the way money's in the detail that is beautiful hi there i'm kevin o'connor and welcome back to this old house here in westerly rhode island where as you can see a lot has happened in the last couple weeks so the kitchen cabinets uppers and lowers are in and the island cabinets are in as well countertops are starting to go in and check out the coffered ceiling look at that beautiful detail this goes all throughout these two rooms and down here on the floors we have got random with white oak with a beautiful finish on those again all throughout the two spaces these base cabinets once they get doors we'll also get a wood countertop here that's going to be white oak as well and it's going to look a lot like the shelving on either side of the fireplace hey chris jeff how are you good kevin how are you all right so floating shelves all the rage these days yeah so we've got two inch uh white oak floating shelves and we've got sort of a three-sided section here and we've installed a cleat on the wall and that cleat will accept the dado in the back of the shelf so that you don't see any fasteners or no brackets are required and they don't want to see brackets because they want to sort of keep this clean look and you get it with the ship lap you know it's sort of a modern look so it makes sense this is the shelf right here yeah so what we got is we made uh two two pieces of uh five quarter oak and we glued that together so you got a nice big two inch thick yeah right then we ran this through the table saw with the dado blade and created that slot all the way through the back and the two sides so then after that to conceal the front we just applied a full size nosing all the way on the front so it looks like one piece of wood we've got holes pre-drilled already so are you these are pre-drilled holes are you lined up to hit studs uh actually no because we have uh three-quarter inch poplar on the back wall here attached to three-quarter inch plywood so we got an inch and a half of material back there all right so before we put the shelf in because these walls are finished painted and we've got a real tight tolerance i'm just going to put tape on either side so we don't mar that paint we'll start with the bottom shelf all right so these are labeled here we go right here bottom and this is the top okay so i'm aiming for that side bracket to go right there yep all right so this thing is very snug so we're going to get real close with it and we got to go in perfectly parallel otherwise it'll bind okay you on i'm on okay hang on hang on let me get a little faster i love how tight that fit is is rock solid looks good too huh yeah all right so that countertop will be the exact same material same thickness wow that is a great look i love it so now we gotta do the mantel all right so similar idea we want the floating look solid piece of oak a little bit thicker so we're at three inches now so a little different technique yeah that's the cleat that's a big cleat so we have a lot of mantle to hold up so what we did was we we cut out the back of the poplar there and we had a lot of solid blocking so we basically took that cleat and attached it back to a piece of three-quarter screwed through the back we actually put five inch screws so we have screws that all the way come to the front of this cleat and then we a lot of glue we put it back in against the solid block and we screwed top and bottom all the way across so you have a space to screw there and space to screw underneath here exactly so that and now this is the one that's really nice oh that thing's not going anywhere all right so let's take a look at what you're putting on it oh so you look at it and it looks like it's one piece of one piece of material and that's because it really is but we we v folded it so this this piece is actually two pieces mitered but it came out of the same board so that gives the appearance that it's the same piece of wood and what we're looking at i'll give you a little better example here you can see that we mitered these corners we mitered the back the front every every which way is mitered so that this will slip right over that cleat okay okay come to me about an eighth get that love that look right there jeff two i mean three shelves on that side three on this side mantle everything's floating great look yeah we got two countertops to go and then we're ready for a tv beautiful nice job now you can watch this old house and ask this old house anytime anywhere download our new app to stream full episodes to your tablet your tv and your phone binge classic episodes catch up on recent renovations and get step-by-step help projects all around the house best of all it's free the most trusted home improvement information is now available on amazon fire tv roku apple tv ios and android devices download the thistle house streaming app today you may recall that our ranch house had knotty pine in just about every room jeff and tom saved some of it but at least one room in this house will pay homage to that mid-century wall cover so it's a little beat up we've got to clean up the edges and resurface it but we're going to make it into a wayne's coat wall in one of the kids play rooms okay so you want to give me a hand sure all right so first thing i'm just gonna cut it to lengths that we can manage all right so you notice that the edges of this are pretty beat up so i think the first thing we'll do is run it through the table saw and get a clean edge on each side you're gonna save as much of this width as possible yeah we'll max it right out great all right now let's run them through the planer all right so knowing this stuff is uh really patinated over 50 years so i think the best thing is the best way to clean it up you know flatten the surface a bit if it needs it right looks pretty good yeah yeah that looks a lot better so next thing we'll do is we're going to set up on a router table here two different size rabbets so that when we put them together we end up with that nickel gap right so you have one that's wider than the other one pretty simple right so we'll start with the shallow one first so now we set up for the deeper rabbit and all we're going to do is advance this board over the thickness of our nickel gap so norm this is the uh kids playroom and this is the room we chose to do the uh wainscote treatment so we've got this set up so that uh this wall is plywood up to about 36 inches so we've got a good substrate to attach to so i think what we'll do is uh we'll just run a couple horizontal beads of adhesive here and then we'll just rely on the pin nails to keep it in temporarily narrow piece boy that just yeah it's right on the edge all right that's great so then to finish it we're gonna put a paint grade cap right on top there conceal that and uh this will get painted white the base will get painted white and then we're going to whitewash the pine and then this will be paint all right it's going to look great when it's done and it's a good use of old material yeah want to tackle all your home improvement projects with confidence join this old house insider a new streaming service from this old house the iconic emmy-winning series that inspired a generation of home enthusiasts stream over 1 000 episodes of this old house and ask this old house commercial free watch it all in the this old house app and join live online q and a's with our experts best of all you can try insider free for seven days to join go to this old housemembership.com this year's apprentices catherine and deshawn are taking a break from the rest of the project for a two-week trip up here to maine but it's not a camping trip they've come to a special school that teaches everything from conventional home building to timber framing the shelter institute is a school that teaches how to build smart energy efficient homes this afternoon what we're going to do is illustrated nicely on page 121 in the notebook mary who apprenticed for us on our last rhode island project became an instructor here last year there we go mary this is a big treat for us to come up here and find you working at the institute and you've got a bit of a history with this place yeah i do so i took a two week homebuilding course here a couple years ago and took a timber frame course here actually about a month before i came to apprentice for you guys right and then you spent two three months with us on the job site how did you end up back here so i actually got an email from shelter shortly after i got home to mississippi that they were looking for a timber frame intern so the timing just worked out perfectly you jumped on it huh yeah now that you're here what are you doing every day what are your responsibilities um so a lot of days i'm here in the shop we build custom timber frames um we also teach timber framing so we build structures like this one here and what am i looking at how do you describe this so this is a 24 by 24 post and beam structure that we build during a five-day class built by students very cool so do you love it i mean i do i love it so much it's a perfect combination of artistry and buildings so when we met you had your cake business yes very accomplished very successful in that but you told yourself you wanted to be in the trades how does it feel to sort of met that goal yeah yeah really fulfilling it's really nice too that teaching has been a part of that i'd never dreamt i would have gotten the opportunity to do that as well so you had mentioned that one of the first things you did when you got here was ended up on a job site for a timber frame addition yes how well did jeff sweener prepare you for that i know what very well um it was nice coming from two and a half months on a job site in rhode island to the job site here i definitely had the gear for it and then you have the attitude i did i did you know working with all those yankees i toughen you up that's awesome yeah and now we've got two new apprentices catherine and deshawn they're here yes uh you see them are thrilled to have catherine and deshawn here yeah and you're now part of that sort of continuation of the whole thing how does that feel great great it's definitely fulfilling you're gonna treat them well for us teach them how to really absolutely awesome well congrats man we're glad you found your place thank you so much case you have located the institute in a beautiful spot this is awesome tell me about what you've got here the institute started in 1974 during the first oil crisis teaching people to design and build energy efficient homes and that was the real emphasis at that time we've evolved quite a bit through the years and today we take a more holistic look at the entire building we start with building driveways move into foundations framing systems talk about wiring and plumbing all the details that would culminate in a house that someone would love to live in and who are you teaching and what's the curriculum like we're giving you an overview and then we're going to do we have people that have just retired that are looking to move into the next phase of life we have people who are between jobs we have people who are thinking about building a house and they are from all walks of life in all different parts of the country all different ages it's amazing to me every class the range of people that are there and and also the reasons that they're here do be conscious of how much these building materials are obvious they want to understand what what's going on in their house you know when they when the lights go out they want to know why and what to do to fix it when they get an ice dam in the winter time again what's going on there what can we do to fix that so you have two of our apprentices with you what's their curriculum like uh it's very busy so they'll be starting each day around 7 30 and not finishing till about 7 30 pm usually we start out in our shop with a more hands-on setting and then we'll move back up into our classroom it's definitely intense but i like it because it's not just like a abc123 on building it actually forces you to analyze things a little bit more when making your decisions and building a property or home all day long you are creating something and you get that feeling of instant gratification and at the end of the day you have created something that's very real when i came to the first day they gave me the feel that i can already accomplish what's coming to me like telling me that everything that i'm going to build is going to be something amazing it's going to be something spectacular but there's rules i've been waiting for this course it's very important to me and just because it's in my field and wanting to expand what i know in the building industry i want to be able to take as much as i can from this and leave filled with like a 100 competent that i could go out and do this myself thank you for what you do here at the institute and have done with your family for so long and thank you for the invitation to join you thanks kevin and for taking care of our apprentices it's been a pleasure this was the house of joshua babcock a businessman a doctor and a major general in america's war for independence babcock was a friend of benjamin franklin and his house is one of those special places where you can accurately say george washington slept here linda chaffey is one of the trustees here at the house linda nice to meet you good to meet you i'd love to hear about the house built when 1734. you know when it was built george washington was only two years old so it's been around a long time and built for who it was built for joshua babcock he is uh one of our very famous early citizens he was a founding fellow of brown university the first rhode island graduate from yale he did a little bit of everything so we're very proud of joshua and does the house that he built reflect his stature in the community it does it's um qualifies as a mansion in this era has very high ceilings for the time you know anybody who could afford enough fuel to keep these big rooms warm had to be wealthy high ceilings we have wide board floors we have lovely woodwork our corner cupboard is beyond compare and the front hall is just gorgeous with its railing that goes up and the newel post is just a work of art in itself it's just excellent so we like this house because it captures the history of westerly in the 1700s the 1800s and with our new granite museum it takes it into the 1900s so somebody who comes here gets a broad view of history in westerly so good construction has lasted over the centuries it has and it's still telling stories thanks to your guys efforts yeah we're trying we're trying well thank you very much for uh thank you for coming to see us absolutely 130 years after the babcock house was built wesley became known for something else tourists victorian homes sprouted up and celebrities escaping newport's spotlight hid behind westerly's hedgerows clark gable and henry ford were residents and today so too are taylor swift and conan o'brien jack nice to meet you how are you i am well i appreciate you picking me up and showing me around well this is a little gem of a car you have here yeah just to take people from the train station to the hotel and what is it this is a 1913 model t depot hat wow so train station the hotel was uh says a lot of people came here as tourists to visit this area the watch hill went from having a lighthouse and farming to large hotels steamboats and then it became a cottage colony and what are we at now we're coming down to watch hill point and in front of us is the lighthouse well jack you've got a beautiful spot right here i really appreciate you showing us around and bringing out the old beauty for it well thanks thanks for coming if watch hill is for the upper crust muskromnet beach is for the rest of us this seven mile stretch of sand attracts people from all over new england i think i know the answer but what's the attraction it's the water it's the beach it's the it's the great times it's the memories it's the experience we're just it's a great a great section of rhode island and coastal rhode island our project house is two miles directly up the hill from here a nice bike ride in the summer hey john hey good morning jen good to see you good to see you too so we're starting the steps today we are starting the steps today um this is the front entry to the house a little more formal than the steps that are going to happen in the back of the house right here we start with the landing there's going to be a couple of steps here we've laid out the rest of the walkway we have three more steps in this location that'll match those and this is going to be the blue stone walkway all the way down it looks like you use a couple less steps than i had on the plan right we had to take into account the grading so now we're moving the stone into position the guys are going to put some mortar on top of the block of the block here right to create a setting bed and we score the bottom of the tread in different directions there's no particular pattern what we want to do is create some depth so that the mortar will push up into this and help it from shifting laterally in the winter time that makes sense it's just like pottery so right now we're getting ready to put the uh the glue on the bottom of the of the tread and that's a thinner mixture than the thicker setting bed you could really see the difference it's it's a little more liquid right they're setting it they bring it to that line we talked about it's going to go right in perfectly so what about that granite that's out back let's take a look all right hey good morning shayla hi john hi jen good morning good morning hey we're installing steps for you today we started out front now we're going to start in the back here with the westerly granite steps and these are the ones that we saw in the quarry and being cut nice smooth top tread surface rock face front they're beautiful the way we install these steps is we dig out the native earth we backfill with gravel we compact that gravel we add a little sand so that we can shim the bottom get the pitch correct set the first step so now that we're ready to install the second step we're going to use this contraption here this is a vacuum lift it's a new way that we use to install heavy steps like this instead of the old way which would have been to use a couple of slings and what happens is this is connected to our excavator and we swing it into place almost like a crane and set it down now it uses a vacuum suction system and if there's a problem with the stone or it needs some kind of adjustment we can very easily pick it back up add a little more sand level it out set it back down i have a question so you said the the stone piece is about 5 600 pounds yeah when they were delivered um they said they were each were about 600 pounds okay so how many pounds does this one lift so this particular unit will lift 1400 pounds so we're well within uh the range because this is a lot safer too because no one's gonna have their fingers underneath the stone as we're pulling straps out like we used to okay and that looks perfect great thank you it's deep enough that it's comfortable but it's not too much because you want the right cadence okay walking up the step so you want to give it a shot sure that's perfect it's more of a relaxed entry in formal entryway so we had to do from point a to point b the slope also dictated the length that we had to stretch it to right so and you wanted westerly granite we did i absolutely love these yeah so i am excited about this and the front's going to look great so let's keep on going sounds good to me thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button to make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed\n"