Construction Blogging: The Backstory

Once upon a time, there was a King named Ben.  In 2003, King Ben bought an old castle overlooking a beautiful lake.  King Ben initially intended to fix up the castle and live there forever with the royal dog, Prince Buddy.  He soon discovered, however, that fixing the castle to his liking would cost more money than just tearing down the castle and starting from scratch, so a new plan was born.

 

By 2005, King Ben had fallen in love with a Lady named Darsi, and she moved into the castle.  Winters in the castle were extremely cold, as its walls were made of cinderblock covered with cedar siding, and it had no insulation (only the best castles are insulated - duh).  The castle had electric central heat that, even with the use of a wood fireplace insert, could not heat the castle above 54 degrees when the outside temperatures fell below freezing.  After a few such winters (try getting out of bed and taking a shower when it's 54 degrees in your castle), the royal family decided that they could bear it no longer and began thinking seriously about what to do with the kingdom.  In early 2007, Queen Darsi awoke one morning to find that an evil serpent had invaded the drafty royal banquet hall (a/k/a the dining room), and she demanded that the castle be burned to the ground immediately.  Having a somewhat more rational mind about serpents than the Queen, King Ben refused to burn the castle immediately but agreed that more serious steps must be taken to modernize the kingdom (after he removed the evil serpent from the banquet hall, of course). 

 

Because the King and Queen were very fond of the lake on which the kingdom sat, and because they wanted to be as economical as possible (these were no taxpayer-funded, wasteful royals, mind you), it was decided that they would not vacate the kingdom while the modernization took place.  The kingdom consisted of the castle and a detached carriage house (a/k/a garage), as well as a boathouse. 

The royals decided to tear down the carriage house and build a newer, fancier carriage house containing quite comfortable "staff quarters."  They would continue to live in the castle while the new carriage house was built, and they would then move into the staff quarters and demolish the castle.  Then, of course, they would build a new castle, which would be attached to the new carriage house, at which time they would move into the new castle and begin to use the staff quarters for actual staff (or for something else, considering that the royals likely will never have "staff," much to Queen Darsi's chagrin).

 

The royals designed the new carriage house (and the to-be-attached castle) themselves and enlisted the help of a draftsman to put it to paper.  In the summer of 2007, King Ben set to work demolishing the old carriage house.  He got some help from Sir Tom and his trusty black steed.

 

 

In October 2007, work began on the new carriage house.  It progressed to completion in April 2008.

Prince Buddy is guarding the kingdom.

After moving in to the new carriage house, the royals demolished the castle.  This time, they enlisted the help of professionals (not that King Ben and Sir Tom weren't great demolition men, but even though the castle had its faults, it was decidedly more sturdy than the old carriage house).

Go ahead.  Look closely at this picture.  There was ZERO insulation in this castle.

No more castle, but the royal burning bush was spared.

Again, the royals were very economical, so they wanted to pay off most of the borrowed funds used to build the new carriage house (together with the cost of the property itself) before going further into debt to finance the new castle.  The royals expected they would be ready to begin the new castle in approximately three years.

 

About three years later, in the summer of 2011, the royals decided that they were ready to build a new...boathouse!  The castle can wait; the royal yacht needs a new home.  So in the fall of 2011, King Ben (again, with help from Sir Tom and his trusty black steed), tore down the old boathouse. 

Through winter 2011 and spring 2012, the royals constructed a new boathouse to match the new carriage house.  

 

 

FINALLY, in 2013, the royals began to seriously consider building the new castle.  Stay tuned for the present-day story.