Where we left off outside...
We're working on the inside of the house most days, and the outside of the house is likely to look like this for several months, so I thought I'd post a picture. You can imagine what our finished house will look like if you... replace the road cone with a copper finial, take the plywood off the top of the small stone tower, add stone (yet to be quarried) all the way up to the top of the tall tower, remove the cement mixer from the front yard (done!), cover the tyvek with stucco, insert a timber frame entry between the two towers, carry the stone around the right side of the house, build gutters-fascia-soffit, and add a porch (on stone piers) to the gabled face of the house. Hmmm. Not much left to do on the outside... we'd better keep working on the inside.
posted by Thomas Massie at Wednesday, December 19, 2007
3 Comments:
You have created a masterpiece...Stunning.
perseverance, ingenuity, determination.... , I am trying to absorb the amount of work and planning that you have put forward in creating your castle. You have displayed the virtues of a true purest/craftsman... Simply stunning.. .
we designed & built our home/studio (stick frame method)and it took us 8 years to complete,(using as many salvaged architectural still usable pieces as possible, that we could drag home) including clearing the land of a huge dump zone that took a year. We felt pretty good about ourselves.... But I am absolutely in sheer awe of what you have accomplished. WOW!!!!!
Thank you for the fabulous tour...... What a wealth of experience you have gathered. You have to publish this in a book to show people that they can do this too... make people aim high & be proud of themselves...
Fabulous... Gwen in New Brunswick Canada
Gwen,
I am truly honored by your comments. If I can interpret those terms in my own case:
perseverance - never really acknowledging how much work still lies ahead, therefore never knowing when to give up.
ingenuity - making up that which I should have known before tackling this project.
determination - fear of turning back, knowing that the only other option at this point is to get a real job and pay someone else to finish the house.
I took a look at your house on your blog. You all finished your house in 8 years? That is awesome. I love the Gothic doors. I don't know if this house will ever be finished... e.g. soffit is at least a year away, but we really want to move in this year.
I see from your profile that you and your family live near the Bay of Fundy. My wife and I accidentally visited there once. I surprised her with cruise tickets from Boston to Bermuda. We boarded the ship, a hurricane struck Bermuda and the sadistic Norweigen captain took us North. It was for the most part a chilly, miserable trip in choppy seas, but the exceptional highlight was when we docked at Saint John, near the bay of Fundy. They arranged "bus tours," but I was tired of having my life in someone else's hands so as soon as the plank hit the dock I ran ashore and got the only available rent-a-car in the town and we spent the day exploring the awesome countryside around the Bay of Fundy! You picked a beautiful place to put down roots.
That's funny!!! I remember that cruise ship rescheduling. We make jewelry for a living & my 12 yr old son was selling his jewelry at the village harbor then, when the cruise ships came in. I felt so sorry for everybody on the ship being sent up here to the land of fog.. what a shock that must have been when they all expected to be basking on a southern beach.... too cruel!!
Oh I know too well how it feels when it feels like "we are never going to finish this house"... I remember that Christmas doing the dishes at a sink propped up on 2 saw-horses.. Since we lived on site in a camp out kind of style... if you call that style. in one small room with all our furniture stacked on top of each other up to the ceiling all around the room and barely a rabbit path to walk through it.... Oh those were the days.. "fools rush in where sane men fear to tread"...
Wouldn't change a thing though.. When you get an idea, get dirty, sweat, work till you drop & get up & do it again the next day... & sometimes feel like you could not go on, but you do... it builds character & it Really gives you an appreciation for other peoples work & fortitude... more people should do it, there would probably be more care in the world.......... if only it never took so long..
There is light at the end of the tunnel & you will never regret doing this ! All the best, Gwen
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