The Leary Family spends first night in Leary Castle

Every year Ed Leary's sister, Karen, who inherited the castle and then sold to us, comes to visit and see the progress. This year we invited her, her husband Ed, and their friend Mary, from Minnesota, to come visit and spend the night for the very first time. Mary is a friend of Karen's from college and she was one of the first people to video the beginnings of the castle, it was such an honor to have them all with us and to have them sharing stories of Ed and his aspirations for the castle.

 Andy, Rex, Tosh and I arrived late Friday evening & were excited to drive up and find the new light fixture aglow. Ruby opted to stay home and visit with friends who were coming in from out of town. Andy and I were up until 2:30am working on the puzzle we started back on Labor Day. nothing like the wind howling outside on a Fall Adirondack night, candle light, martini's and a puzzle...... at a castle to set the perfect night.

 

We obviously slept in until 11am next morning having stayed up late and it was time to get working for Andy and Rex and get shopping for me as I was making a nice home made castle meal for our guest. We got stuff done and were back to greet out guest, Karen, Don, and Mary mid afternoon. It only took about 30 minutes before we all had Steins in hand and were toasting to just about everything.

                                           

I know Mary looks scared here, but she quickly warmed up to my charms and we became soul/breast sisters pretty darn quickly.
                                      
So my Tuscan Lasagna is in the oven, salad is made, getting ready to broil the steaks and toast the bread and POOF, all the lights, and electricity go out. We are having an Adirondack, late Fall rain and wind storm and apparently it was powerful enough to blow the electricity to our part of town. The police assured me the electric department was on it, so we lit the grill for the steaks, stuck the bread in oven with Lasagna, and did what anyone would do in this situation, drank more wine and told ghost stories. All of us believe Ed had something to do with the lights out and we said Thank you Ed Leary for a totally awesome first lights experience with your sister and her family/friends. Just as Andy was cutting the steaks from the grill, poof, the electricity was back and we could see how much we all drank.

What's dinner without a toast?

                                             
We had three nice bottles of white wine during the power outage, nice addition to wine cellar.

 Our guest retired early and Andy & Rex played a medevil game while I continued to work on that puzzle.

 You saw the new walk way  above the wine racks, but now they have hardware and a screen for viewing movies. no TV's, but lots of castle movies!

This banner is something we have had for several years and now it hangs in the great hall staircase near the newly installed window.

 A newly designed, by Andy, and built by, Alan Patrick, wrought iron railing along the upper walk way from great room to king and queen's room landing.

 and opposite the iron railing, the glass panel landing overlooking the great room from back side.

                                      Karen working on final two glass panels for windows                
                                   
                            Don, is camera shy, but he jumped in to help Karen with windows.

                                                                              Smile!

 We called the original mason's wife, Sue, to come visit. as she knew Ed, Karen, & Don. It was so nice to be in room as they reminiscenced.

 My Momma and Poppie stopped to visit and see progress on way home from visit in Adirondacks from family. My camera was acting up and sorry for darkness.

                                              Newly apolstered bench for Ruby's room.

All the men, Rex, andy & Tosh slept on way home

First SNOW & more friends and progress

Balcony/walkway around Fungeon /Wine Room under construction 2 weeks ago

and Viola, finis this weekend. Another great photo op place in corner of walkway. 

 This chair was in Andy's house when he was growing up. His parents gave it to us when we got married and we gave it to our best man when we tired of it, who gave it back to us last year when he was moving. It's reupholstered and castle-ish and back where it was meant to be.

These are the glass panels we made in March with my parents, sister, and our friends the Johnson's and now they are the balcony walkway panels. It is gorgeous in the morning with the sun coming up and signing through while you sit in the compfy red chairs enjoying your coffee.

 You might not really be able to tell in this stair picture, but these stairs are now cleaned and sealed, which  is very exciting to me as I won't get the dust storm I usually get when I clean them.

 Ms. Maria finished the bathroom curtains. Here are the curtains on the slide rods, ready to be installled.

 Here is Andy and Mark Johnson, yes, the one of the Johnson family who helped with glass panels,   hanging the rod and curtain in the king's room. Mark got a boo-boo, but said, "it's just a small flesh wound".

                                   and Voila, the bathrooms now have a curtain and privacy!

 remember those blue insulation windows in the kings room, they are now gone and we have real windows and a beautiful view!

                                                   Here's a better view of all three windows.

                                                  Hardware is on the back of the front door.

              A view of the outside of castle with almost every window in, just one more to go.

 Maria came to help with the installation of the bathroom curtains and headed up playing HEADBANZ with ms. sam johnson.

 Melinda Johnson is recooperating and taking it easy, so she work hard on the castle puzzle we started on Labor day.

      and here's where we are now with the 1000 piece puzzle at the end of two weekends.

 Andy and Maria are deep in discussion about how to hang a piece of art work on this wall.

 Our friends the Lundborg's came up with their girls, Lily and Ingrid. They are both adorable and very smart. They couldn't get enough of the fruit, so we just put it on the floor and let them at it.

 Momma Pam was making her famous one egg cheesy omelet and she's right, they are very tasty.

 Maria had a good nights sleep and was putting together a sewing bag for us in case of emergency sewing needs.

 Poppa Lundborg, Lieutenant to some in the SPD, was rocking with his coffee and the mocha, salty caramel creamer, he's not too manly to enjoy a nicely flavored coffee

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                                                  and the adorable Lundborg family.

 I re organized the plates and glass cabinet. Trying to make kitchen user friendly for when we have guests there when we are not.

 Andy and I cleaned  the great Hall stairs in preparation for sealing them the following day. He told me he would be spraying down the stairs with the hose and I would just have to stand at bottom with shop vac. He didn't tell me that when he sprayed the stairs that the water would shoot everywhere and especially, down the stairs onto me. I was drenched and might I say the water was quite cold, this would have been a very funny video.

 The great room.The big painting hanging over the balcony is one done by our friend Phil. It is a small section of the Sistine chapel and it is the one that will hang at end of balcony stairs that Maria and Andy were discussing earlier.

                     Andy made a fake fireplace to see how it will look like as far as spacing.

                                      
 Hilary was up from Nashville at a wedding in LP with Jessica, my young girlies from my Merry Go Round days. We are still FB friends and we connected and they made it to the castle for a visit, YEAH! Great seeing them and showing them around.

                                    Can't tell from this pic, but it was snowing this morning

 Andy sealing the stairs. yes, he is in his Adirondack plaid pj's and yes, this sealer stinks and I had to get out of there after 20 mins.

             A great weekend at the castle. Work is getting less and fun and relaxation is getting more.