Castle Project Update

The castle project has not had much headway.

* The Frankentractor has not run in over a year; I've tried to repair it, but my garage just doesn't have the room to really work on it, I don't have the tools to pull the engine out safely, and I do not have the technical know-how to really figure it out.

* I am trying to do this entirely debt-free, and, well, stuff is expensive, and work takes a lot of time.

In thinking it through, I've realized that my current home is my biggest obstacle. It's a nice enough home, but the mortgage is a significant portion of my income, which makes it really difficult to accomplish anything other than paying for the house. We've been able to save a few hundred bucks here and there, but ultimately, we've been kinda stuck in limbo, not really able to make major headway on the castle, and not able to afford to change things significantly. In addition, the property is about 12 miles from the house, so it's kind of a pain to drive down there to work on things.

So on November 3rd, my wife and I went to vote in the mid-term elections, and as we were driving from the polling center to pay our water bill, we saw a camper for sale. We stopped to check it out. It would require a significant amount of our savings, and probably require a bit of work, but it would give us an opportunity: it would allow us to move out of our house.

So we've developed a new, smaller goal to help us achieve the larger goal: move from the house into the camper, and sell the house. Having significantly more of my income would allow us to make improvements more rapidly, without incurring debt. Being on the property would allow us to just walk outside in order to work on things like clearing trails, clearing the construction zone, getting stuff to the site, and generally building stuff.

So we bought the camper, and have made it our goal to be moved into the camper by the end of 2015. That means we have to accomplish several even smaller goals:

1) complete enough driveway to be able to put the camper onto the land. Right now we're probably 40 feet short of this goal.

2) clear enough trees and dead wood to be able to navigate around the camper once it's on the land.

3) Install a septic system or cess pit.

4) Dig a well

5) Make whatever repairs are necessary so the camper is fully habitable.

6) Get enough solar power on the land to power computers.

7) Get internet to the land.

8) Clear out the current house (store a bunch of stuff)

9) Patch and paint the walls in the current house.

10) Sell the current house.

Some of these goals are easier than others. Goal #1, for example, is really simple; there's a nursery right around the corner from the property, and a scoop of gravel costs $20.06. We go there, buy a scoop, back in to the property, take the tailgate off of the truck, and pull the gravel out with rakes. It really couldn't be much simpler.

Clearing the trees isn't all that hard, but it's very time consuming. Additionally, we've got a problem: one of the trees we need to clear is totally wrapped in poison ivy. We've been re-building our immunity using Oral Ivy in order to prepare to clear it, but even then it seems like we'll want to wear jump suits.

I'm not sure where to begin on the septic system or cess pit. I've been told I could just dig a hole and have the drain hose from the trailer pour into that. Sounds kinda shady.  I guess I need to call the local building inspector and ask what the rules and regulations are.



Digging a well seems to be a straightforward proposition; this area used to all be seafloor, so it's all sand. Apparently it's entirely possible to drill a well by hand here, just using PVC pipe with teeth cut into it. I don't know if I can get deep enough with that method, but it's certainly cheap enough to try.

The camper repairs don't seem to be all that bad.  The roof has a couple of leaks, and the heater is busted. The roof leaks will probably just be a matter of installing this stuff. The heater seems to just need an intake hose, but I'm not sure about that. In the worst case, I'll have to replace the whole heater unit, which will probably be around $500.00.

Solar is actually something that could wait until we have sold the house. I've got a generator which will provide enough power, I think, to keep the camper fully operational. If not, it'll be cheaper to get a bigger generator than to get enough solar panels. With that said, once I'm out of the house, building a solar farm would become a very affordable proposition.

Getting Internet is somewhat critical though. I telecommute for a company in California, so having reliable, fast Internet is a huge sticking point for me. Luckily, I saw AT&T install fiber optic cables directly across the street from the property about a week before we bought the camper. I'm still trying to find somebody at AT&T to figure out how to get the fiber across the road to my property, but this one is looking really promising.

Clearing out the current house will be a challenge. We've got way more stuff than will fit in a camper, and we're not keen on getting rid of it, especially since the longer-term goal is to build a castle, where all of that stuff will be nice to have again. Our thinking is that we're going to buy a shipping container and a bunch of shelves, and see if we can stuff everything in there. It'll be more convenient than a mini-storage, because we'll only have to move everything once - onto the property, and once the container is purchased, we don't have additional costs other than maintenance.

Of course, patching and painting the walls in the current house is no problem. Selling the house may be a challenge, just because the housing market is still a bit depressed. Hopefully that will turn around soon. If not, we could rent out the house instead.  That might even be a better solution than selling it, provided we can turn a profit from renting it.

In any event, I think we've got a feasible game plan to execute over the next 13 months.

For the castle itself, we're now thinking that the quickest way to get there from here may well be to use shipping containers for that, too. Basically, the four walls would be containers next to each other, with turrets built at each corner. We're thinking that maybe rather than going for a purely classical castle appearance, with stone facades and whatnot, the shipping container approach may present a fun opportunity.  Put short cylinders on top to evoke a LEGO appearance. Hey, if you're going to go unconventional, why not go fully unconventional?