This is a unique castle, and a mine to boot

Hard Luck Mine Castle.  An owner built castle and a mine with a slightly industrial look, lots of metal fixtures.  For sale too.

Not much about this one...

A residence being converted to a castle.  I couldn't find anything else about it on the web, so here it is.

Stone Gate Castle, er... Manor I mean.

Had some spare time today while the kid was taking a nap to peruse the web to see if any new castles had come out of the closet and into the light of the web, sure enough I found one.  I must admit that the site calls it a "manor" and not a castle, but I figure it looks like a little castle to me. The site needs some work (or at least it displays poorly on Chrome), but the owners apparently hold classes that teach stonework and stained glass amongst other things.  I really like the interior, especially the great hall.


Photo from Stone Gate Manor site.

Add some renders for fun, added "car port"

EDIT: Removed and replaced car port pic.

Another Design

One thing that has become abundantly clear with the arrival of our child is that any time at all that I had for hobbies has been pitched out the window with force.  I have unfinished stained glass windows that I get to look at in passing on the way to other tasks, CGI ideas that never even make it past my imagination, and the ones that do actually get rendered take 3 times as long to get modeled.  That means nothing terribly original is going to come about, but I can still tweak and modify some of the things I already have.  So that's what's happened here, I'm sure you'll recognize the resemblance to the preceding models.

A new resource for getting off the grid a little - or just DIY in general.

I have a new news feed to keep up with, a very interesting site called Low-Tech Magazine.  The site's purpose is to point out that things don't always need a high tech solution to accomplish a task and it uses historical references to point this out.  A neat little mechanical history lesson! 

Now, how does this pertain to would-be castle builders?  I guess it's what you make of it.  There's information on timbrel vaulting, a more efficient way to build with brick; a link turns up to practicalaction.org that has information on how to build with stone and a host of other back to basics DIY info (a little dire, but good info), or even information on masonry stoves with their uses and design.  So, it's not directly castle related info, but it's certainly useful in adding DIY ideas to your to-do list along with maybe making your home a little more off the grid.  Worth a look!

Busy

Yep, the little one is consuming all of my free time.  All that spare time I had to peruse the web for castles and doodle my little houses with Sketchup:  *poof*.  Gone.  Now it's the never-ending chain of soiled diapers, feeding and entertaining a 4 month old with all of the inherent baby fussiness, and then scrambling to catch up on the household work that can be done while she naps.  Ah, the joys of parenthood!

Doesn't mean I haven't been giving thought to building.  We have plans to contract the sewer system this coming year.  Our permit for putting one in is only good for 2 years, so we need to get this done sooner rather than later.  Otherwise we run into the trouble and expense of having to have the approval re-done, and the potential risk of having code and environmental rules change in such a manner that we would no longer be able to build what or where we plan on the site.  This means we'll need to get a site plan done (which will help immensely in my building design effort), likely build an access road/driveway and then find someone to do the work. 

First steps are coming soon.  Wow.

Adirondack Castle Resurrected? (Leary Castle)

Back in February I posted a castle in the Adirondacks that a reader had found for sale.  Just recently another reader stopped by and commented that she'd found a blog featuring the very same castle!  It looks to have been purchased after the original owner-builder's death by the family that is working on it now.  Pretty cool! 

Looks like the castle is called the "Leary Castle".  I'll send them a hello message and see if they want to share any info about their project.

Thanks, Fionnait!

(Image from the Leary Castle Blog.)

Coronado Stone Products

SYWBC reader Derrick pointed out a castle that used Coronado Stone.  It's pretty neat and looks to be huge, but not owner built as far as I can tell.  You can see the castle at the Coronado Stone site by clicking Enter Site > Gallery (left hand side) > Residential (from the drop down menu)  and then using the slider at the bottom and going just about half-way across with it, the titles are alphabetical and it's under "Country Castle". 


The part I'm more interested in is the large variety of products offered by Coronado Stone.  I'm sure they're quite expensive, but may be useful for a future castle builder?  Soem of it looks great, and they even offer cast frames for arches and doorways that look like stone.  Anyway, they're added to the tags of products for castle builders.

Thanks, Derrick!

Time

My apologies to folks that have submitted comments over the last weeks, I'm sure you've checked to see if they've popped up yet and may have wondered why they haven't.  Well, the reason is that we have a new addition to our family, born 24 July, so the time I spent fooling around on the 'puter looking for and designing castles has now been usurped by diapers, laundry, dishes, no sleep and trying to figure out what a screaming baby wants (which is usually food).  So, until our little one settles into a routine that allows us a few minutes of free time, I'm afraid this blog will suffer.  I'll get to comments ASAP, I promise! 

Ah, time to change another diaper....