u/Zonker92

Not sure when it was built (maybe 1870-ish?), this house was a private residence for a mill owner, and around 1940 served as a two-room schoolhouse.

Located across a bridge on a river, with about 80 acres of woods, it caught my parents’ eyes in 1965. We took it over in the early aughts and started renovating under the supervision of my architect father-in-law. It was failing structurally so a lot of jacking and engineering was involved.

Countless dollars and twenty years later we’re still finishing up odds and ends. New plumbing, electrical, kitchen, baths, windows, insulation, roof, drainage, etc. never-ending labor of love.

Someday we’d love to rebuild the wraparound porch and add a garage. Money! Any suggestions on dating it would be welcome. I’ve been through the overlapping parcel deeds (astounding number of them) and there are no building permits there (to this day, the town doesn’t require them).

Interesting trivia: According to Wikipedia, nineteenth century poet Lucy Larcom, for whom the Larcom Mountains (just up the road) are named, used to stay at a “Bearcamp River House,” but I can’t figure out whether that was our house on the river, in South Tamworth. Our house has been variously called the Bartlett House and the Bemis School.

I built this preamp years ago out of scrap materials in my garage, plus a perforated baking sheet. It houses some Hypnotoad phonographic stages, a Pass B1 preamp board, a Pass (?) power supply, a Goldpoint attenuator, a remote control for the volume, and various eBay parts. It still works fine!

I built this “drop-in” plinth years ago, out of 4/4 walnut (actually, I built most of the wooden bits shown here, including the cabinet and DIY preamp). I had the turntable chassis powder coated.

One little constraint that emerged was, How the heck can I get the heavy turntable in and out of the plinth without dropping it or pinching my fingers? I solved it by making the rear rail attached with magnets, allowing me to open it up.