Columbus Day Weekend 2010

We were actually working so hard this past weekend, that I didn't stop to take many pictures, so you'll have to trust me when I say we got alot done, cause you wouldn't know it from the pictures!

Andy went up early Friday morning to meet the Heating and Plumbing guys. They made the boiler panel off site at thier shop and then brought it up and did the installation in one day. here is a picture of the panel in the shop (Andy says it is a work of art, I haven't seen many, so I'll take his word on that), in place @ the castle. He has it covered and wrapped to keep it warm and protected, and a picture of the pipes coming outside.

Most of the Eastern Coast got alot of rain the week before and the Adirondacks were no exception. We got alot of rain that is holding in our upper pond and we even got some holding in the moat area. That was the good news. The bad news was we got alot of water in the castle too, but that is to be expected as we have not sump pumps running yet.

The Ole Grandpa came up for a quick visit and brought a castle warming gift. here are the kids with it. What type of castle does he think this is? It makes lights and noise too, so beware when you visit!

Gandpa's real purpose for the visit was to bring up some plants and seeds and see how they do through winter and into the spring. Here are Rex and him digging, planting, and admiring.

Andy had high hopes to get some more windows openings cut, but putting up the scafolding to do so was as far as we ever got. He pulled the start cord right off the concrete saw and obviously couldn't get it started. he went back to the room that evening and found a "do it yourself" video on the internet of how to fix the cord & first thing next morning he went to hardware store, got what he needed and fixed it. Excellent, so he goes to start the saw the next day and then something happens to the spring. Well, he rememberd in the "do it yourself" video it said if it is a spring problem that we should take the saw in, so we gave up on cutting any concrete for the rest of the weekend & we will be taking the saw in to get repaired. Very frustrating to get everythnig ready and then have that all happen. This is the scafolding and where we were going to cut a bigger window.

Maria & Dave came up for a day to help us and it was a beautiful fall day, so we thought we'd take advantage of that and have a roof top sunset and champagne break. here is the beautiful fall folliage from the roof.

and the champagne with it's fun castle cork!

and the sunset! gorgeous!

Rex found a new seat on the side of the front hill. It is all fun and games until he leans forward!

So this is a picture of the first floor, old tool room & what will be part of game room (the dart board is going where that red marking is). But what we were doing in here is putting in 3 columns of concrete block to reinforce the fireplace that will be put in above here in the great room. Andy says fireplaces are very heavy and need extra support. So while this picture doesn't look like much, we had to haul concrete blocks from all three floors above, down to first floor, then we stacked them, mixing cement as we went, and once the columns were up to the window, we filled the first row of them with concrete. That meant setting up more scaffolding for us to stand on to reach the openings at the top. I never took a picture of the columns done and scaffolding in place cause I was the one setting it up and mixing and filling concrete that day.

Here is another picture that doesn't look like much, but one that took us an entire afternoon with 5 people working on it. These big timbers were down on first floor in tool room. We lifted them out of there through the back door and then hoisted them up in air against wall and yet more scaffolding. Then we had to shimmy them up the wall and scaffolding into the window on the backside of the castle that goes into the great room. Once there we pushed them in the window and placed them onto this cart. Some of these timbers were 20 feet long and hundreds of pounds, no small task, thank goodness for Dave and Maria. Maria sustained the second injury at the castle during this task. She wacked one of these big timbers into her wrist and experienced pain and swelling, sorry Ms. Maria.

Here are maria and Dave working on a less trying task. We did yet more trimming of trees and brush, this time around the moat area and it is looking good!

So that was our productive holiday weekend. Andy stayed late on Monday and got numerous holes cut in floors and interior walls for electrical and plumbing pass throughs. he also made some drainage holes in the floors to try and keep it less wet on upper floors.

We'll be back up at the end of the month, might have some new visitors/helpers and Andy has been talking with someone about roofing membranes, so we might be working on that!

and what did you do on Columbus Day?

We made it into Adirondack Life

Here's the cover of the Special Collectors edition of Adirondack Life that just came out.

We are noted on the cover: "Dream Homes from Medieval Castles to Pondside Homes"

Here is the small spread we got. They are going to follow the progress and do something bigger upon completion. Nice picture!

and here is what the article says in case you can't read the fine print.

Thanks Adirondack Life!

9.25.10

It's fall in the Adirondacks! Some said our last work weekend was peak leaf viewing and here is what that looks like from the castle looking out. "X" marks the spot!
We saw lots of glimpses of this picture perfect weather in between alot of rain, but that is better than snow, so we'll take it cause as Patti said, "it is going to snow next week" and she is probably not far off.

Andy was working back home all week on a stained glass window for the turret where Edward had a unique castle like window opening. Andy used some of our XanderBlue glass & had a friend help him make the circular cuts on the glass & then he set the glass together.
Once at the castle we had to set up a two story scaffold on the outside of the turret so Andy could set the window into place. here is the scaffolding all put together & Andy bravely standing on it!

and here is the window! The first picture is from the outside with a faint glow of light behind it. The second picture is from the inside. There will be a little powder room and toliet in this area when castle is complete.
Alot of work for a little window, but every detail is important & it is pretty exciting to have one window in!

so, the next project of the weekend was putting back the metal sign Andy found on the property. The sign was found next to the stone structure that use to house the explosives for the quarry. Andy refinished it to make it ledgible, but still kept the oldness to it. He put a wood frame around it and here he is placing it back where he found it. That is Ken, a reporter from The Adirondack Explorer, helping Andy. He came to do an interview with gloves in hand. He worked a good three hours while conducting his interview.

Ruby, a friend, and Tosh helped me continue with brush clean up. Tosh thinks he can drive now!
I took pictures of the piles of brush we moved from one place to another, but they weren't very exciting.

Andy continued to use his new cement cutting saw to work more on making the window openings bigger & he cut some interior holes between the walls that are going to be needed for heating and plumbing. he is getting pretty good at it and now that he has the proper gear to wear, he isn't getting as wet!
It was a quick, wet weekend & we're looking forward to a long weekend over Columbus Day, hopefully full of sunshine and more beautiful leaves. We have the heating and plumbing contractors coming up to install the boiler. Andy said their boiler panel is a piece of art, I will be sure to get a picture of that!

Labor Day Weekend 9.10

Tosh has decided we are done with the stairs and he will guard them until we are ready to cut through to the roof. How can you argue with that?

So Andy decided, since the concrete cutting contractors bid came in three times higher than
he expected, that he would give it a try and see how it goes. He purchased a concrete cutting saw, watched a bunched of videos, and was ready to get to work. Here he is with the new saw. He got the water one, so it is a bit messy. He got some cute wet pants and boots to compliment the new saw and to try and stay dry.

Rex & I are the set up crew. We had to go around to all the markings Andy had made the weekend before and set up platforms so he had a level ground to stand on while he was making the cuts. This is an example of one of our platforms. We used the concrete block we had lying around to make it. We made about 3-4 of these near the windows Andy was cutting. Andy cut along the orange marking lines to make the window openings longer to accomodate the windows he choose for these openings.

The saw, along with being wet and messy, also generates alot of dust and air debris, so we set up these exhaust hoses to try and keep the area he was working in well ventilated.

These are some of the chunks of concrete block Andy cut out to enlarge the windows on the front facade. We all stayed clear & Tosh was tied up to ensure no blocks fell on any heads!

There is Andy up on the fourth floor. He just finished cutting both the top windows and he said once he got the hang of it, it wasn't that bad. He said the biggest thing about the concrete cutting is having the stamina to hold the weight of the saw as still as you can while making the cuts, very tiring.

Here are Rex and I. We are the clean up crew too. Andy goes in, makes the cuts and has all the fun & then goes on to the next cut. Rex & I come in and clean up the mess he made. Rex has a concrete drill that shaves off the bumpy parts Andy may have left. I am shovelling up the water, mud, and small debris pieces he left.

This is Rex preparing to go out on the property and clear some dead trees. Andy just got this new helmut and Rex added a few of his own touches. It is the latest is camo sawing wear.

Rex found a Tarzan vine and put it to good use. ahahahahahahahahahah

Jack, my friend Patti's son, came and helped clean up some of the dead trees and low and behold he found a winner on a bottle of unopened 7up. He's going to send it in and see if they will redeem his wnner.

This is our new concrete zen garden.

OK, it was a small pit to the side of the castle and we put all the broken concrete blocks in it as part of our clean up.

This is one of the areas the kids & I cleared out, it is actually the top of a large stone ledge.

Here is Rex on the cleaned up ledge from the bottom looking up. Since Rex found the ledge, according to him, we are calling it Rex's Ridge.

This is on the side of Rex's ridge, you can't tell it very well from the picture, but they are like stairs going up the ridge. very cool.

So, that's it. It was a busy weekend & we got alot done. We also had a bunch of visitors who were in the area and saw the gate down. It is always fun to see and hear people's comments when they first see the place.

This past weekend was the first weekend we weren't up at the castle, but be assured, Andy was up in the shop working on things for the castle and our next trip up & I was able to spend some time organizing the box of papers we got from Edward's sister regarding the castle. I am trying to figure out how to incorporate some of that into the blog.

Stay tuned.