Happy Fall

Welcome to Leary Castle. This is an old sign we found at Syracuse Antique Exchange. We hung it at the front gate to see how it looked. Andy is working on a design to put on it, but I think it looks pretty good there.

 Chris has taken cover under a big black tarp to continue the stone work on the turret. Doesn't look that pretty, but it protects him from the rain and wind and he also has to keep the stones and mortar dry after he gets them into place. He is almost to the top and it really looks good, he is doing a great job.

Rex is becoming a master concrete builder. He carries the concrete mix in from the trailer, 80 bags of it at 80 lbs. each, you can see here he needed a few breaks and he found the bags of concrete to be a nice bed for those breaks.

Once all the bags were in, he would mix it and he is not afraid to get his head right in there to make sure it is mixed perfectly.

 The he fills up his bucket and carries it again to where it needs to be dumped. He says it is just as heavy when mixed.

So, yes, Andy and Rex have been doing alot of concrete work on the master stair area. You saw in the last blog that they were building the form work in preparation for the concrete pours and here are some more pics of that with the pours in place.

a new stair instead of wobbly cinder blocks.

 

 Filling in the corner space making it a platform that will be flush with the stairs. Andy is thinking this will be a good place for a knight in a suit of Armour.

 filling in a space to the right of the stairs with a nice curved detailed

looking down at the stairs and all the work going on

New stairs leading into the great room instead of wobbly cinder blocks. 

Also note, for some reason Ed did not bring stairs all the way to the wall on the right, so we extended them over.

 Jerry, the plumber continues to lay his roadwork of tubes. He says he has about three weeks before he is finished with the 4th floor and then he moves onto the next one. He too is doing an awesome job.

Brian and Mark continue to do framework. Above is on the 4th floor under the windows.

 Here is framework covering the plumbing going from the great room into the kitchen.

This is above the main staircase, behind this framework is the library powder room in the turret. 

 I spent most of my time picking glue and paper off of the stain glass windows that our friends made. Above is the picking, below is the finished product. I got 5 windows done and 3 set three of them with their exterior glass.

Grandpa came for his yearly visit and brought a picnic, he even had something for Tosh.

 Grandpa also likes to bring something unique to add to the castle. This visit it was an arrow through the tree.

Ruby came and took alot of pictures

 we had some very nice Adirondack fall weather, Happy first day of fall! 

 and we had some not so nice fall weather. You can't tell, but it was pouring in this picture of me. Yup, I will stand in the rain for my daughter to get a good picture.

Back home Grandpa works on a stained glass window that will go on the front door behind the knocker.

The lions are doing well.

More finds take their place

The HUGE lions we found in Saratoga at the beginning of the summer have taken their temporary place at the castle. Andy & Rex drove a big rental truck to Saratoga last weekend to pick up the two lions and the fountain we had bought. The lions are atleast 4 feet tall and solid concrete, Andy says they weigh about 1000 lbs., he does tend to exaggerate at times, but Rex agrees they are very heavy having had to get them on the truck with just him and Andy. Luckily Brian, Marc, Chris, & Jack were there to help unload.

They currently are atop the small hill in front of the castle

The fountain made it safe and is waiting for its placement to the right of the front door.

Chris is making great progress with the stone on the turret. He is getting up there and it is a lot more work getting up and down the scaffolding with these stones. he brings Jack whenever he can and says things go a lot faster with his help. 

Jerry the plumber has been busy laying the plumbing tubes out. 

As he has been installing the tubes, Marc has been framing them in where needed.

 This is one of the bathrooms on the newly created floor above the great room. It is amazing how exciting it is just to see some colored tubes going in.

This is a template Andy drew of a dragon head that we are carving into the end of some of the beams.

 Rex and Jack got some carving instructions from Andy, were handed their tools,  and they were off chiseling. they did really well for 14 yr. old boys!

I was given the task of painting in the carvings. Sounds easy enough, but I did not have the right tools and it took a while, but it was fun. Here is one of the dragon heads I painted. This one was already in place, so I was up high on a ladder.

                                     
Andy & Rex also worked on building a form work at the base of the great room stairs. Mr. Leary did some quirky things with these stairs.

 We plan to correct the stairs by enclosing this small triangle area and leveling  it out with the stairs and have a knight in Armour displayed here.Then we have to extend the stairs on each end so they go all the way to the wall, as they don't currently.

This is a sketch of the stairs coming into the great room. Andy finally decided he was going to put a glass window above the door as it looks here. My shower is on the other side of that window, how cool is that! 

of course we cleaned more and loaded the rental truck up with alot of garbage. The boys are headed back up this weekend to work more on the stair case area. Stay tuned.

and the walls come crumbling down..

Moore's Flatwork and Foundation has been busy cutting the concrete for the interior cuts Andy wanted. Here is the tool room cut which now opens into the Fungeon. Marc and Brian needed a good work out, so they took to knocking the rest of the block out for us and here it is:

Andy is standing in the fungeon and Tosh is looking down at him from what is now the tool room

Here I am in the Fungeon looking back up at the boys. The tool room will be where the pool table is. It is amazing how much this cut opens up the space and makes it feel even bigger. Andy is very excited about it. Thank you to Brian and Marc for cleaning out all the concrete block too cause Andy planned on us doing that this past weekend.

Here is the other big interior cut. I am standing in the great room looking into what will be the kitchen. This use to just be a doorway and wall, now it is open to great room again making it appear even bigger and making the flow much nicer.

Chris is hard at work with the stone work, he is about half way up the turret and it is looking good. He is paying close attention to each stone as he puts it in place. He says he has a fish swimming, an angry bird, and a pac man eating the dot so far in the design. That'll keep the kids busy looking for those!

The kids stayed back with Nana and Poppie this past weekend, so it was just Andy & I up. We did alot of cleaning. Now that the holes are cut, most of the dusty, dirty work inside is done, so we are working to get everything vacuumed/swept and de-dusted. It is pretty spotless for a castle under construction. 

Our neighbor had a block party and we got to hear more stories about Edward and the castle before it was ours, it was a nice time and there are some good stories.

Stayed tuned.

and work continues

We were up at the castle a few weeks ago. Mark and Brian and Uncle Frank are still plugging along doing things while we are not there, so it was exciting to see what they had done since our last trip.

The scaffolding is there are the guys were building a roof over the window as it was leaking without it there. They did the same and built a little roof on the window on the otherside also.

This pile of concrete outside is from an opening they cut inside. Below you can see there is a door opening to great room walkway. The concrete cutters are coming back this week to cut the other openings in the kitchen and in the game room, it will be exciting to have all that dirty work done and over with.

The windows are all getting framed out as you can see here.

We moved the big chalice to a rock on Rex's ridge along side the back corner of the castle. Uncle Frank easily moved it with his front loader and Rex and Andy cemented it onto the rock.

The boys put up the other side of the arch above the door. It went up alot smoother this time having had the experience of the other side already. Again, they lifted it upright, slide it along a wood guide post on the wall and cranked it up with a farm crank and bolted it into place, easy peasey.

 Jack and Chris were helping, as you can see.

 Almost there.

While the boys were doing all the hard work. Ruby & I swept and vacuumed the 3rd and 4th floors and then we swept all the spiral stairs, let's try and keep it clean people! 

The plumber/Heater, Jerry Fobare, is starting this week to do his stuff. Concrete cutters will hopefully be finished in a week or two. Chris was over a third of the way up the turret with the stone work.

The boys are headed up this weekend for an air soft tournament with a bunch of Rex's friends, will be fun for them to just play and enjoy the property and not have to work.