Hear ye: The rolls are called -

- and Castle Freedom, Thornwood, and Tirion are stricken. Castle Freedom simply because the main site is gone, though the creator of that castle's idea has several pages scattered throughout the web wishfully talking about it and his philosophies. Subjective of me, yes; but I don't see it going anywhere. Thornwood has turned into a farm (for now), so no more castle there either. Tirion has fallen off the face of the Earth. I know, Tirion is off in the West and us mere mortals aren't meant to find it, but a website would be nice!

Polls ended:

What Kind of castle do you want to build?

Big fortress type - traditional looking "stone block"

94 (35%)

Mixed - little bit of stone fortress, but some decorative turrets

111 (42%)

Schloss - less fortress like, quite decorative with turrets, etc...

32 (12%)

Walt Disney Castle!

25 (9%)


Votes so far: 262

How far are you from building a castle?

Man, I'll never get there!

37 (21%)

I've got the land, just waiting for the $$ and/or plans to build!

29 (16%)

1 - 3 years

9 (5%)

3 - 5 years

10 (5%)

Dreaming about it, but I will do it!

91 (51%)


Votes so far: 176

When building your castle, how much of the work will you do yourself (hammer in hand)?

100%, I am the contractor/builder.

0 (0%)
Builder will do things I can't do, heavy work like grading/pouring a slab. I'll do the rest.

0 (0%)
Builder will do heavy work + basic structure + plumbing, etc... I'll do the interior.

3 (100%)

The builder will do it all while I sit back and watch

0 (0%)

Votes so far: 3

Surprisingly few votes on the "Who is going to do the work?" poll. Lots of dreamers out there, and a not insignificant number who actually have the land and are planning to build. The favored look of the castle seems to be semi-decorative, not limited to a stone fortress, but not Neuschwanstein either.

So; suggestions for castle-building and related polls readers might like to see? I'll take a suggestion or two, and if it seems appropriate, put your submitted Q&A up as a new site poll.

And lastly a little splash of color

Final version

Final version, plus one that I hacked out the port cochere quick-and-dirty. This resulted in a larger overall structure square footage-wise. With a little more work, the facade would flow more nicely.

Front:

© Jeff Wagner

Back:

© Jeff Wagner

Sans Port Cochere:

© Jeff Wagner

Design advances nicely

Chugging along with current design

Updated.

Took a trip to the land again

...and not a whole lot to report. Quite pretty there when it's all "greened up", we saw deer while we were traipsing about amongst the trees. Unfortunately I can tell that black flies will be an issue, you couldn't walk 20 feet without having to swat an ever-growing cloud of the annoying buggers away. We also discovered that there are actually 3 streams on the property, not just the 1 large one. The 2 biggest combine at the bottom edge of the land, while a small, possibly seasonal, stream meets up close to the junction of the other two. Also, we noted that the plastic "No Trespassing" signs had likely deliberately been removed. We thought the wind had pulled them off, but no... they were all on the ground in the same spot at the end of the land where someone had carried them to the point of the last sign removed. Whatever for? At any rate, we were equipped with aluminum signs and a ladder this time and placed them as high off the ground as we could reach with the ladder. Hopefully they'll be out of reach of the casual vandal.

As a side note, if anyone uses an iPhone, there are a couple of free apps I'd recommend for driving expenses and fuel economy measuring. I wanted to see how much it cost round-trip for tolls and gas, and what sort of economy the car got; so I recommend "Road Trip Lite" for checking economy and "VehiCal" for expenses during traveling.