Stone House Construction nearing completion

[Greg Mitchell]

For those of you who are interested, I have updated my stone house thread on the ASRA forum.

Ten years, nearly done and dusted!

Pics are bigger on the ASRA forum.

Mitch.

 

[Fl90]

That's a good looking place. A lot to be proud of.

Phil

 

[StanFoster]

Mitch- I just love stone construction. It is so permanent. I can only imagine how many hours you have in those nice walls. Well done....


Stan

 

[choppergabor]

That is absolutely gorgeous Mitch. Wow. I bet the view is equally beautiful from the inside out. If you get a chance would you snap a few pics for us to see what you see from the inside? Beautiful work my friend absolutely beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Greg Mitchell]

Thankyou Gents.

10 years has gone by to quick, though I'm glad this project is nearing completion. The wife has a whole list for me to work through yet.

Couple of pics from the build process and after we first moved in.

We are on 1 acre and one street back from the West Tamar River. All the rock was picked by hand from local area and surrounds. Volcanic rock...diorite, dolorite.

I still have living mosses and lichens on the stone work indoors, I spray with a water mister.

First two pics were taken this morning (out door front aspect.).

 

[Greg Mitchell]

Last pic.

The little model in the previous group of pics, was the design concept model for the project.

Cheers Fellas.

Mitch

 

[Timchick]

Very nice.

 

[choppergabor]

Wow Mitch! Superb! Lots of work went into this castle of yours. Absolutely awesome. Thanks for sharing with us.

 

[C. Beaty]

I’m impressed, Mitch. I assume you did all the stone masonry yourself with family members helping.

But don’t tell me you raised those roof timbers by yourself.

 

[Redbaron]

sweet, thanks for sharing mitch, that is some talent, thanks for making me feel inferior! lol :hail:

 

[Greg Mitchell]

il fiore la casa grande....

il fiore la casa grande....

Cheers Gabor, we love it.

Geez Red, dont feel bad. Anyone with a pile of rock and some patience for jigsaw puzzles and you're off and running.

Thanks Tim.

Cheers CB. You are right in your assumption, CB all the stone work is mine. Some help from family collecting local stone.

Yeah we used a crane to lift the trussess.:lol:

Phil, the wife and I are real proud of what we have done here.

Lots and lots of hours Stan, I shudder to think how many tons of stone we gathered and I laid into walls.

I went through an old hard drive and turns out I was building the Blue Emperor Butterfly as we were hoisting the trussess.

Some pics.

Mitch.

 

[StanFoster]

Mitch- I noticed your excellent contemporary styled stairway. I love the parallel tensioned cable balustrade. Are the steps cut slabs of stone or cast concrete? Simply beautiful work and you really have an eye for this. I also love those 1/4 circle trusses and how you made them. My eye always goes to anything curved. Circles give anything life to it. You have displayed a very high level of skill that had to have a high level of perseverance to see your project through. By all means write a book. I could just see Taunton Press coming out with your book with a title like, Building a stone house down under. Please post more of your beautiful work Mitch, especially that stairway. Stan

 

[Heron]

Mitch
You are one refined Neanderthal!
Keepa is looking good!
What about them rug rats? So cute . . .
Love you man!
Heron

 

[Russ Hobbs]

Mitch
Now I have to burn my old shack down. I agree with Stan that is a real eye catcher and accomplishment, it would make a good read. So how much did you have to pay that pretty girl to hang on your arm like that

 

[C. Beaty]

Those roof trusses and box beams show an unusual degree of engineering talent.

My guess is that they were prefabs from a specialist firm.

 

[Greg Mitchell]

Morning Gents,

Heron my Brother, Elise and the kids are well. I miss your company my friend.

Stan the stairs stringers/runners (?) were made by a mate Val Heartner (has an engineering workshop), made of steel. He also made up the Gussetts for the trussess. I had to plan in advance for the stairway and lighting set into walls. GPO's went through the slab on a circuit and light switches and power up through walls....so it was all thought out and walked through in my mind before the stone was laid.

CB trussess were put together on site by the first builder employed to help me get the top story on. He chose to deviate from the plan and took the locus point for the curve and moved it. This caused major problems and a re-think to get the water to shed from under the main window section. The curved roof section is double skinned with insulation, we had to batten up from a inch and a half to nearly 5" at the top to get water shed. He was only on site for two weeks. My Mate Mick and I put the second story floor in. The beams are pinus pulustrus (?) pitch pine or long leaf pine and I believe it hails from Florida USA. The used the beams as a set of for bolted together for the pump rods down in the Beaconsfield gold mine. We scored 8 beams shortest length was 5 m's for $800 dollars. The timber is 100 years old. some of the timber was slabbed off using a lucas bush mill on site to manufacture the window and door jambs/headers. We have a lot of history in this construction.
Some time later we employed a carpenter/builder to help me with framing the master bedroom.
The build process took longer than expected because I had 2 cervical spinal surgeries during this time. (3 years ago).
There is a detailed account of what transpired throughout the build process on the ASRA forum.

Russ I paid Elise a fortune...got lucky with this girl.....as Heron says Keepa is looking good.

Cheers

Mitch.

 

[barnstorm2]

Congratulations!

(my back hurts just looking at the photos...)

.

 

[C. Beaty]

You’re certainly an enterprising fellow, Mitch, free stone and timbers from a gold mine. Nails and mortar may have been your one of your major material expenses.

Long leaf pine from South Florida provided half of the World’s power and telephone poles before the virgin forests were exhausted. It requires 50-100 years to reach maturity. This stuff gets so hard after a few years that it’s difficult to drive a nail in it. But it is no more except for isolated stands in preserves.

 

[Greg Mitchell]

Cheers Tim,

We are booked to return to the USA 2012 for Mentone and Oshkosh, see you again Mate.

CB, dont know for sure but I heard the pitch pine is resistent to freshwater rot, so the pump rods made of 9" sq beams X 4 came from the bottom of the mine. Apparently the two rods we got had been sitting in water for 65 years. I had to separate both rods, still held together by 100 year old rusty steel pins about 1/2" in diameter, this gave us the 8 lengths, straight as a die. Magic.

I understand some of the timber they used in the Suez Canal (sp?) was Satinay (sp?), from Fraser Island off the Queensland Coast here in Oz. Those timbers being particularly resistent to the effects of salt water. I think apart from Fraser, maybe the Satinay is headed down the same path.

They just re-built the Facade at the tourist centre of the gold mine at Beaconsfield. The two trapped miners that survived a couple years back, put some money into the town after they finished their US interview circuit. The pitch pine looks wonderfull when worked and sealed. We left ours all rough cut beams as is. The window and door jambs too but they at least got a coat of stain/sealer.

Cheers,

Mitch

 

[ventana7]

Mitch,

It turned out FANTASTIC. What a beauty. I remember seeing it a few years back and it was cool then even with only one leve half done. I also remember how much work you had already done then.
My compliments mate- you should be very proud.

Rob