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.

Sketchup Design Again

Back at it again. I kept messing with the previous design and found it looked less and less castle-like the more I tweaked it. Some parts of it looked good, the rest didn't, and no matter what I did I couldn't find a way to make it look good. With this design I backed off and made it simpler in some ways and more complex in others. I reduced the half-timber overhang and timber ends, made the port cochere square, and tried to make it look a little more like 2 separate buildings, a gate house and castle. Overall it's smaller as well, giving it a less massive and more cozy feel. As usual, I'll work with it until it works or I get sick of it, and comments are always welcome.

Property visit

We drove out to the land to check up on things (can't do it as often as we'd like, it costs a bundle in time, fuel and tolls) and had a look around. After signing the papers last year, we placed several signs of the "No Trespassing" variety on the roadside perimeter just as a CYA precaution. Oddly enough, upon our return visit, the signs were gone! Not cracked with pieces hanging on, but removed - along with the fasteners too.

Still working on designs for the house, all recent versions have wound up in the trash bin.

A fellow Sketch-upper and cement caster

Found this blog while digging through the Google analysis for this site. One of the referred sites was this Centerstone, so I paid it a visit. Seems the author is a fellow "Sketch-upper" and is also doing something I definitely plan on doing: Making cement molds for decorative "stonework". Check it out, looks pretty interesting and you can learn something.