Featured Posts

  • Stone Complete

    The masons laid the last wall stone on March 28th 2018. The first had been laid on February 7th 2016. So it was over two years. It didn’t need to take so long but we had supplier problems and changed crews a couple times and had small crews generally. But the exterior stone is now… [more…]

    Stone Complete
  • Aerial Photos and First Floor Walls Finished

    Happy Thanksgiving. Two days ago the first floor walls were poured finally. So ICF is a really long construction process, really, really, long. There is a ton of residential construction going on where I live right now and I’m forever jealous of these stick frame homes I see go up in a week or two,… [more…]

    Aerial Photos and First Floor Walls Finished
  • Castle Wall Stone Options

    One of the main reasons to build a castle is because you like the way castles look, obviously. Otherwise you wouldn’t take on such an ambitious building project. One of the key components to how they look is the exterior stone cladding for your walls, and that can also be a significant budget expense. I’m… [more…]

    Castle Wall Stone Options
  • Exciting Day: First Looks at Castle Exterior

    After dreaming this place up at least a decade ago, putting it in the “what if” and “maybe someday” category, gradually moving it into the “possibly” category, then the “probably” category, and now hopefully in the “definitely” category.  After over a year of finally getting down to the nitty gritty and nailing down the interior… [more…]

    Exciting Day: First Looks at Castle Exterior
  • An Energy Efficient Castle

    We’re building with concrete, for a number of reasons. It is strong, it can survive hurricanes and tornadoes, it is thick, giving us the wall thickness we desire, but also it is incredibly energy efficient, and I wanted to build an energy efficient castle. Concrete has immense thermal mass which allows it to only slowly… [more…]

    An Energy Efficient Castle

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on mostly…

Stone has been chugging along, bits of framing here or there, chimneys, breezeway stuff. Not a whole lot of big monumental things. We have our first few windows installed, more will go in next week. Plumbing has started and we’re about to turn HVAC and fire sprinkler guys loose.

The biggest recent development has been the completion of the majority of the roof. Why only the majority of the roof? Well, because we’re using different roofing systems. The majority of the roof is flat and uses what is called a TPO membrane. I want to thank Chris Fetty of TriState Roofing for getting that done for us. First they had to put down multiple layers of foam boards for insulation, then glue down the reflective white (and man that thing is bright, I think I need snow goggles on when I go up there – but that just shows how much heat it is reflecting), and of course flash all the penetrations. I had them use grey membrane for the sides of the parapet walls, it is the same material, just a darker color, and not as reflective. From a distance it may look like stone. Of course the tops of the crenelations will get stone, but then the inside of those walls up here I’m fine with leaving the more artificial (but water tight) finish. I wanted to use the white on the roof for the energy efficiency benefits, but the parapet walls aren’t insulated conditioned space so I’m fine with them absorbing a little more heat from the sunlight with the grey finish – and it makes it much easier on the eyes to look out over the battlements too. I’m not kidding, it is bright up there.

We will also apply spray foam to the underside of the roof deck, so when you combine that foam, the foam on top of the roof deck, and the reflective white membrane, I think we’ll have a very efficient roof assembly.

All we need now is the copper for the front conical turret caps, and then to crane those up and into place.

We also had some metal ship ladders built by JC Electric Gates installed for accessing the roof of the rear towers (the 5th or 6th floor if you count the basement or not), the view from up there is epic.

We do not yet have the skylight installed, but it is covered up for safety (and covered with plastic to keep the rain out).

14207788_1219281438134745_7618181299845360455_o

14241646_1219281381468084_8201361354692431131_o

14231757_1219281378134751_1151949733962063317_o

14231872_1219281368134752_7577204442640374596_o

14195214_1219281294801426_7591860993455638031_o

14124359_1219281241468098_5583789582843886815_o

14138273_1219281244801431_116068260632373079_o

14231998_1219281234801432_4936499214583965569_o

14188176_1219281178134771_6605659668792422336_o

14188672_1219281174801438_8904122812175592608_o

14207806_1219281168134772_4994941931990175031_o

14231912_1219281098134779_6945882244885106712_o

14195367_1219281101468112_1406981319309869823_o

14137968_1219281104801445_2230440247499792146_o

Its a wrap…

Still no roof, but we’re so close I can taste it. We have our roof decking, just not our membrane, things are starting to get flashed. We’re close, and oh so close to windows too, windows!

But the final silhouette of the castle is basically there, and it is a sight. The only thing missing are the conical turrets for the front towers, which are on site, just on the ground, we are building them on the ground and will hoist them up with a crane. It is safer that way.

So we’ve gotten finally almost completely wrapped with Tyvek, it is now a bright white beacon on the hill, and the masons are making good progress on the stone (though there is so very much to do). No finished pool yet, or greenhouse, or skylight. No doors installed yet, though soon on those as well. We did just get a massive driveway gate, it is just the metal framework now but once I put wood on it it’ll look like the gate from Jurassic Park.

So, here is how things look now:

13754270_1178994972163392_4490105842400187772_n

13731506_1178995682163321_5451776897359252318_n

13680783_1178995598829996_5204146133928282157_n

13731446_1178995555496667_576638302207179407_n

13681015_1178995522163337_4421321266906664169_n

13769381_1178995258830030_2873185705876371552_n

13680917_1178995242163365_5802291832917571691_n

13700203_1178995205496702_237096923751521604_n

13770529_1178995165496706_7513802787495960827_n

13726811_1178995115496711_6418843838284236515_n

And since we’ve got decking on those flat-roofed fourth floor towers, I can provide what would be the fifth floor views, if there was a fifth floor.

13769554_1178987732164116_2399693580278692718_n

13686663_1178987842164105_4834826833814707748_n

13707781_1178987798830776_5733978969288245446_n

13718528_1178987765497446_8324509736998319716_n

13754369_1178987875497435_5186942426317969938_n

13669727_1178987908830765_624481019420861176_n

Crenelations

We have crenelations, yes, we do, we have crenelations, how bout you?

Since the resolution of the light gauge steel problems things have started moving pretty fast. The crenelations have gone up in a few days. Next will be the front tower 4th floor framing, then, or concurrently, chimney chases and rear tower framing, and we should be about ready for our roof membrane.

People the world over recognize crenelations as one of the quintessential characteristics of a castle, and it is a personal pet peeve of mine when people try to mimic them without the proper scale. These were meant to hide defenders, so unless your castle is being defended by the lollipop guild you need them to be pretty big, mine are. They are a functional part of a castle, not decorative.

The tooth part is called a merlon, the gap is called a crenel, and whole thing is a crenelated battlement, you could also possibly say a crenelated parapet wall. Additionally it is cantilevered, which means it projects beyond its lower supporting wall. This cantilever was done to provide space for little gaps at the base of the wall, called machicolations, that provided an avenue for dropping rocks or oil down on ladder climbing attackers (while not having to expose yourself over the top of the wall). We will not be having the machicolations, but we will be adding corbels to complete the cantilevered look.

13435582_1156003874462502_8970124519495382099_n

13432398_1156003851129171_1043676291381826740_n

13445741_1156003837795839_2574837185009293129_n

13412912_1156003787795844_5759613213551788228_n

13432421_1156003811129175_5339671814887139138_n

13411673_1156004834462406_5882487536961146817_o

13415434_1156004831129073_352252728989278233_o

13419283_1156004824462407_7885404422565373828_n

13450235_1156004044462485_340427009125176655_n

13413002_1156003971129159_4091989707022369104_n

13445304_1156003924462497_4079756997726794225_n

13418764_1156003947795828_6677294816272889711_n

13413749_1156003894462500_7228603849972783169_n (1)

Aerial Views

The ICF contractor had a drone shoot their final pour, and I have photos.

We’re still waiting, and have been waiting around the full month of May, for this light gauge steel resolution. I think we finally, finally, got there today. This is the same steel that should have been installed in March. We’re still searching for an HVAC installer who can do multizoned ductless minisplit systems and geothermal heat pumps. If anyone knows anyone.

We’ve had some thefts up at the construction site recently, pretty major thefts, a tractor and a cement mixer and some smaller tools. I’m told the police may have some leads but I also want to help so I’m offering a $1000 dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. If you know who did it, and maybe you don’t like them so much, now is your chance to get a thousand bucks richer and teach them a lesson. If you’re worried it gets back to you I’ll happily keep you anonymous. If you know anyone who recently came home with a bright red new Mahindra tractor (Max 26XL) or an old grey cement mixer, some shovels and wheelbarrows and the like, get rewarded for doing the right thing. Of course, I’d appreciate any and all help in getting the word out on this as well for those who are local. Someone will know something. If you see someone trying to offload these things, please, don’t buy them, but if you can, see if you can snap the serial number or other pictures and send them to me. The thief may have also been stealing just to get new equipment for themselves.

That out of the way, here are the pictures.

13238871_1145195555543334_4080619363564541821_n

13235644_1137723359623887_5675210463866316899_o

13112783_1137723356290554_2858463057623289035_o

13246158_1145195608876662_1746686021848324068_o

13268165_1145195658876657_299223854190516843_o

13268139_1145195652209991_8657131822876361845_o

13307235_1145195602209996_5068440751376999419_n

13268139_1145195652209991_8657131822876361845_o (1)

13268508_1145195552210001_4496727072339414327_o

4th Floor Views

The 3rd floor is finally done, well, mostly.

1st floor took 80 days, the 2nd floor 52 days. I thought the third floor would continue that trend and be done even faster, it was smaller, all told than prior floors. February 20th was when we finished with the 2nd floor, the third floor wasn’t done until this week, 72 days or so, and the truth is it isn’t quite done.

I thought we were going to have a delay with the ICF walls, and we did, a little, but then they showed up and knocked out their portion pretty quick. We were doing good, but then came the light gauge steel, again. Despite having the plans for over a year the LGS supplier hadn’t yet done the engineering necessary to design the trusses. So we waited, and we waited, and this level is complicated because we’ve got these cantilevered battlements (a cantilever is when you suspend a building out beyond its foundation, a battlement is a crenelated wall), and finally we get our steel, and it’s wrong, or insufficient. So we have these trusses in some spots about 2 feet long, cantilevering out 18 inches, tied back into nothing structural in the house and secured to the wall with like 4 screws. And this is to hold 400 pounds a linear foot plus wind loads. There is another spot where the original structural engineers I’ve paid large sums to put a truss in the wrong place, blocking a stair, so that needs to be changed as well. It’s frustrating because these are costs that shouldn’t exist, and waiting that shouldn’t happen. We waited so long for this complicated engineering and it isn’t even right.

In the meantime, work has progressed on the site, just not work in our “critical path” to getting dried in and ultimately completed. We have a handful of interior walls now. The decorative wood trusses are up. Windows have been ordered. The south wall finally has exterior framing. More exterior patios have been framed, stone is starting to appear on the outside, the pool garage has a roof. The pool is maybe half done. Stairs have been built or poured.

The ICF crew is back now, working on the 4th floor walls. These are so small they won’t take very long, but then we may have a delay again because of this steel issue because some of the other 4th floor walls are steel framed. I think June sometime is when we might expect to be dried in.

Here are the views from the 4th floor.

13151801_1131440476918842_2316557945970001554_n

13179377_1131440423585514_2660976138849218257_n

13177775_1131440440252179_5403016538526173471_n

13173759_1131440456918844_6212076631906873079_n

13151801_1131440476918842_2316557945970001554_n (1)

13087343_1131440533585503_5868015934378668124_n

13139188_1131440586918831_6981816536167333374_n

13094197_1131440690252154_2634180716504944619_n

13102706_1131440550252168_6022588716731157562_n

13173904_1131440576918832_3406273729653555758_n

Here you can see the start of the cantilevered battlement, the steel framed south wall (which includes a 6′ diameter round rose window that is going to be stained glass), and some of the stone work.

13124466_1130684786994411_4594926818957766949_n

13118840_1130684690327754_4050298205151817429_n

13173657_1130684686994421_2319977501277385662_n

13173223_1130684660327757_5811361241506140362_o

And finally, here are two shots of the 4th floor walls going up. Only the corner towers get a 4th floor.

13148294_1138097126241974_2091334803_o

13169985_1138097076241979_2015107601_o

3rd Floor Wall Pour

The third floor was poured last Friday. We’ll see how soon the steel gets out here to finish it up, we had a two weekish ICF break in early march and they still cranked this out pretty quick.

Pictures below are taken right before the pour, some nice dawn shots. These are taken at a “sitting on the roof” sort of height.

The main rectangular section of the castle tops out at 3 floors. It still has a 60 inch battlement that will be built cantilevered out 18 inches from the wall, with corbels underneath (machicolations they’re called). So the walls, overall, get 60 inches higher than this, then they stop.

Except the towers of course. The larger, rear, towers get one whole additional story (12ish more feet), and then the same battlement on top, so call it 17 more feet. The front towers get another story as well and then a conical turret style roof (copper, yay!).

In all cases where we cantilever a battlement we’re framing it, and not making it out of concrete, because of weight. Cantilevering a stone clad framed wall is hard enough without adding in concrete. So the barbican crenelations you see below are the only actual concrete crenelations we’re making. The rest are all framed with stone cladding.

12874286_1103815016336852_315743219_o

12874368_1103813143003706_1890973769_o

12325526_1103812883003732_670888497_o

12874418_1103815226336831_536641923_o

12874541_1103815193003501_2096122986_o

1059934_1103815139670173_1287627746_o

12674892_1103814929670194_586578478_o

12874620_1103813076337046_560365886_o

12722277_1103813019670385_1719047393_o

12516690_1103812933003727_722774773_o

12874551_1103812916337062_1521947006_o

First Crenelations

The first crenelations have been formed. I like them. They’re accurate.

One of my pet peeves is inaccurate crenelations, they are not just a decorative afterthought. People who want to build a “castle” add them, but they don’t see the point, so they make them short and decorative.

Crenelations have two parts, merlons (teeth) and crenels (gaps). The merlons need to be tall enough to hide a man, otherwise they’re pointless. So when you see supposed castles add these 1 or 2 foot tall crenelations just laugh, they might as well not add anything. The whole point was to give cover for defenders to hide behind, allowing them to peek out, shoot, and duck back under cover.

Granted, I don’t expect goblin hordes to attack my castle, but understanding the original use for these architectural features allows me to maintain appropriate accuracy, the last thing I want is for it to end up looking like a play castle.

Did you know in medieval England you needed a “license to crenelate”? The king didn’t want strongholds all over his lands, which could aid future potential revolts. So you needed permission to fortify your property.

Crenelations, properly sized, are one of the key features everyone tends to recognize as defining a castle, vs a mere home with stone walls.

12499334_1103124659739221_64836281_o

12476804_1103124236405930_1236639703_o

12325914_1103131973071823_546068165_o

12381243_1103131953071825_1731004538_o

In unrelated news, third floor walls are being poured tomorrow. We’re estimating a roof in 6-8 weeks.

3rd Floor Views

With some nice clear days finally, and stairs rather than sketchy ladders, I managed to go up and get some pictures of the 3rd floor views. A few new mountains have come into view though in this photos you probably can’t make that sort of detail. ICF is supposed to start back by the end of this upcoming week, pool shell any day now, I’ve been doing a lot of work in the garden already, and we’ve been working on doing the trusses in the great hall – which deserve their own post so I won’t post their pictures here.

12111934_1082592855136938_8853984020011750741_n

1779765_1082593031803587_4748236427858206400_n

12718229_1082593011803589_1282485996953311583_n

12802924_1082592981803592_1485737594543160743_n

12794620_1082592955136928_6417254839997500521_n

12802765_1082592935136930_4578722847396415867_n

11066796_1082592885136935_5616538871085796336_n

12802847_1082592808470276_5782395323951746512_n

12321662_1082592841803606_1953813701918053213_n

2nd Floor Done

The 2nd floor is now done, I am working this weekend and haven’t had a time yet to go and take good pictures of the views, but my builder sent me a lot of photos.

Today is February 20th. The 1st floor was finished on December 30th. 52 days. The first floor was 80 days, so this is an improvement, but I think we could have done better. The ICF went up really fast this time but the light gauge steel still took longer than it should have. We of course had some weather, but I don’t know if there has ever been 50 days of good weather in a row anywhere on Earth so I don’t think that is abnormal. The ICF was essentially done Feburary 3rd so it took 17 days for the steel and subfloor, when, under ideal circumstances, it should be about 8 days. Still, this is almost a full month faster than the 1st floor, a vast improvement.

The great hall is starting to take shape with our heavy wood trusses partially installed, I don’t have good pictures of those yet, but with finally a ceiling, and not just sky, on the great hall the ceiling height is evident, and it is very impressive. The space feels really good on the inside, exactly as I had hoped, or better. Portions of the first floor are going to feel like a hotel lobby, and that was my goal.

Theoretically the third floor should take less time still, there is less in it, every floor gets slightly less as we go up. For the third floor the barbican (the front entry protrusion, the militant cousin of a foyer) goes away completely, and that seemed like it was always 3 days of work right there. The walls overall get simpler, with less variance in window sizes, and there is less heavy steel, and the light steel is also more uniform. Then the fourth floor drops away very strongly with only the towers getting that. So the fourth floor should be very quick. However as of right now the ICF crew is off the project working elsewhere on some other project, and I do not know when they will be back. This is most certainly not a good thing, it delays our critical path, but I’m sure the owner of the other project feels the same when they’re working on mine and not theirs. If they were here and working I wouldn’t be surprised if we could have the third floor poured by the first/second week of March. Then if we had the steel portion down to 2 weeks by April 1st at the latest we could have a 3rd floor roof/4th floor subfloor on. Then, really, I think the fourth floor could be done in two weeks, then say two weeks to roof everything, maybe May 1st we could have a roof on the whole structure. But with this ICF delay I’m not sure.

12736728_1085726251479062_935912129_o

12752286_1086401564744864_1136506581_o

12736696_1086454284739592_626207521_o

12751954_1086548061396881_1342379224_o

12528606_1086548164730204_1978271325_o

12737115_1086548154730205_1577093227_o

12751855_1086401788078175_1860698337_o

12722175_1086401114744909_558855067_o

The greenhouse base and breezeway are done (well, blocks are up, but not poured, ICF crew did this before they left). There was a slight delay there when the wrong blocks were delivered, but they spent that day building window bucks I think so weren’t idle. The breezeway, seen to the right, holds a bathroom for people using the pool, as well as it connects the kitchen to the greenhouse and the pool patio. It is very much going to be a bit like an indoor/outdoor room, though still fully insulated.

Greenhouse Base

2nd Floor Walls and Garden Fence Done

The 2nd floor walls were poured last Friday, Saturday they were knocking bracing off, and now we’re waiting on the heavy steel to start. The crane is up there today but they didn’t get started. In the meantime the pool steel is pretty much all formed and so one of these days that will be done, and my garden fence was finished today.

12662441_1065418333521057_2891595424502345399_n

I had the hardest time trying to find someone to build my fence. It isn’t a complex thing, and people build these all the time, it is a deer proof garden fence, or people often use it for chickens as well, in my case I’m using it for both. But all it is is an 8 foot wire fence with wood posts. Simple right? But I couldn’t get a fence company to bid it, and it isn’t a small fence, over 400 linear feet. Decent size job I figured, but I couldn’t get people to return my calls, or give me bids, or give me bids what I wanted (like I would tell them what I wanted, then they would quote me something else).

Then I found Jesse from Generation Fence and he had my fence up in, I think, less than 10 days after I called him at a good price.

12631541_1067943849935172_4002005549543499972_n

12687894_1067943889935168_7424998995743722716_n

Now I have over 5000 sq/ft of gardening space, and an over 1000 sq/ft chicken run. The house may not be done, nor is it likely to be until another summer passes, but I will be planting in here in a couple weeks and gardening all summer.

We’re into February now, so we didn’t quite get the 2nd floor done in 30 days (I consider it done when the subfloor above is on), but I’m keeping my finger’s crossed it will be done by the end of next week which will put us somewhere around 40 days, cutting in half the 1st floor’s 80 days. Though I do hate it when we have day’s like today, where we catch a break and don’t have forecasted rain, and we don’t make much progress down the critical path.