Brackets in place

So here is a picture I should have taken last week with all the roof frames in place. You'll see there is a rope railing around the roof. The concrete men were here and put that in place in preparation for the concrete pour this week.

Ruby got a new Pogo stick for her birthday and now has a new castle activity.

Andy is getting to cut these window opening bigger with his concrete saw so he had Rex and I working on them to remove the glass and metal frame that were in place. A little hammer drilling, grinding, crow bar, and elbow grease and they are out!

This second window frame removal required moving of the scaffolding and you know how we love to do that.

Andy spent Friday afternoon & Saturday morning up on the scaffolding cutting out more windows. If you look real close youll see him up there.

I started the hot knife and cut down the insulation. I took a break and the hot knife stopped working. That is now 2 hot knives that stopped working.


A picture from the roof looking down the new stairs that go all the way up!

Andy sent Rex up to roof to finish a few things in preparation for the concrete pour this week and we didn't see him for awhile. When I finally went up to check on him I found him asleep in the chimney cut out on the roof. He was there for more than an hour.

This is a picture of the new lower pond from the end looking back.

Sears Construction is now cutting a trail around the entire 20 acres of land. Here is the machine doing the work on the trail.

Here is a picture of where the trail starts. this is near the upper pond. the left road takes you on the trail to the big cracked rock while the right trail takes you to the back of the castle

Here's Ruby hiking up the trail. There is a part in the back that is pretty steep and will make a good sledding hill.

Ruby on the big cracked rock!

I spent Saturday morning trimming out the three crab apple trees on the front driveway. this one is near the upper pond.

This one is as you drive in on your left.

This is at the entrance.

Our friends, The McCarthy family (Dad Dennis, Mom Tracey, Son Graham, & Daughter Shay) came to work for the day on their way through the Adirondacks. Here Rex and Graham are on the upper floor loading cinder blocks on the crane and lowering them to Tracey and I on the ground. We unloaded them and stacked them.

here is Tracey using the guide rope to make sure the crane palette doesn't hit the windows.

the place the cinder blocks use to be on the fourth floor

and the new cinder block pile on the ground with two pretty girls on it!

The McCarthy's dog, Sirus, and Tosh ebcame fast friends. Tosh followed Sirus around and wouldn't leave his side.

The girls hanging out in the window

Andy and Dennis spent most of the day on the scaffolding putting up a guide bar on each side of the great room walls. This would be the bar that the brackets would hook onto. Alot of measurements and calculations were going on every time I came in to check on the progress.

Dennis decided he didn't really like heaights after being on the scaffolding all day.

Here you can see the wood bar across the wall.

We were ready to try and hang first bracket. here is Dennis carrying it over. So strong.

All decks on hand to raise the bracket. We have a pulley system going here on the scaffolding.

and hoist, and pull, and pull...

it's up and now Andy is drilling the bracket into place on the wall. These are the big brackets we stenciled last month. These bracket will hook the large timber together and we'll build the new second floor in the great room on them. The beams will stay exposed as the great room ceiling.

more positioning and drilling.

Success, Andy is happy. His system to place them worked and the first one is in place. The rest will be easy now, according to him.

We continue the celebration at the pool.

and the McCarthy's in the Park Motel chair before they leave after a long days work and head for Old Forge and some hiking. Thank You McCarthys!

Ruby and I left the following morning & drove through Irene and headed home for her 10th birthday sleepover party with friends. Rex and Andy stayed for 2 more days and hung all the brackets on the great room outer wall. Yes, I said Rex and Andy did all that themselves and because they were so busy, we have no pictures, but I will get them this weekend

There are rooms available at the Park Motel if anyone wants to come help this weekend!

The weekend of the moving scaffolding

So the scaffolding started inside in the cisterne/fungeon (feel free to look through previous post to see) and first order of business was to break it down, move it, and set it up outside. Here it is set up. Rex is supervising on top of the turret

Water proofing the top of turret was next thing to do. I had grinded down the rebar that was sticking out the top, so it was nice and smooth and ready for the black tar material. Here is our friend Marc helping with that.

Andy and Rex continue the waterproofing on the other side.

Next was getting the metal form work for the turret in place. Andy had made a template of the top of the turret earlier in the season, took it home, designed what he wanted, took it to Weber Tank in Auburn, New York & they made the turret roof! Here are the boys lifting it up the scaffolding. It was in three pieces.

Here, you can see Rex & Chloe (Marc's daughter)
supervising their dads

Once the pieces were up there, they had to be slide into place, hooked together, then drilled into the concrete. Sounds easy enough, but this whole process took most of the day.

Here they are in place through the window.

Here's the turret roof panels ar they look almost complete, looks like the left one still isn't in place in this picture.

Here's Chloe and mom, Shelly, taking a walk on the property for the first time.

The girls had the task of finishing up the stenciling on the small beams. Knowing Shelly and family were coming , we saved this project for her. She is a world renown children's artist, check out http://www.drooz.com/, to see what I mean. Every castle needs world renown artist working on them!

Here are Tosh and I working on the beams the following day. Not so world renown, but we got the job done.

it was a pretty sight to see when they were all done.

Ruby liked all the letters and wanted to start moving them around to spell words, I said no. The letters are there so we know where they go when we start to place them.

Ruby was around taking pictures, here she is taking a picture of me taking a pciture of her.

Chloe is in a "nerd-off" with a friend and they are going around trying to out do each other doing Planks (a yoga move) in odd places. here is what she and Ruby came up with at the castle. Oh, and the correct terminology is "planking"

Don't be alarmed, it is an airsoft gun. this is Clark, Marc & Shelly's younger son patroling the property. Clark was in heaven and all over the place and unfortunately this is the only picture we got of him. It is great how the kids can keep them selves so entertained when the jobs we give them start to bore them.

Scaffolding move #3, from out front back inside to the great room.

We needed the scaffolding in so Andy and Rex could patch the hole they cut last week in roof for the chimney. It is just a temporary patch while they pour the concrete on the roof in a few weeks.

Scaffolding move #4, from one side of great room to another. Here you can see Ruby pushing a pile of concrete blocks out of the way. The girl is strong!

Scaffolding now in place for Andy to cut out two windows that will be in the fourth floor bedrooms. That is him up there cutting if you look real close.

So, this is the time we took a lunch break and then Ruby & I cleaned the place up and left, taking no more pcitures. Rex and Andy stayed and said they were going to finish cutting the windows, but they ended up making a trap door cover for the spiral staircase instead. Patti was concerned about the stairs being open to the roof for safety purposes and was also concerned about rain pouring in. Andy took her concern to heart and sealed it up!

Thank you to our friends The Strang Family for coming and helping us out, we got alot done and love having our friends be a part of the castle. It was Marc who jumped in the car the week after we read the story on the castle a year and a half ago and encouraged Andy to buy it. Thanks Marc, I think we need to see more of you there for that one!

as always, stay tuned, there is more to come.