Last Weekend at the Rockwood!

So I just spent my final weekend at Rockwood Manor. I'll likely take a few weekday trips to see if I can help finish up the bathroom and re-clean the barn, but that is about it. There are too many other things coming up. The bad news is that the bathrooms are not finished (and actually have a long way to go), the good news is that a lot of work was done to the barn this weekend. All in all it was somewhere between 15-20 hours worth of work for me. My father, soon to be father-in-law and Erin pitched in as well. Below are some photos:

Building Tables

Running a vent through the bathroom roof

In the Barn (me, Erin, my Father)

Hanging Drywall

Rockwood Manor @ night

Erin & me

And Now for some pictures...

Trenches between 1' and 2' deep around the barn/bathroom area.

An Inside View of the bathroom, long way to go.

The Barn from a distance.

Woman's entrance to the bathroom.

The Barn in the Back and the Bathroom in the front (small building with the window).

The Rockwood Manor with tables near the back porch area.

Props to Erin

Today I am proud. Why am I proud? Because Erin headed out to the Rockwood yesterday and worked for 7 hours! She made it known to me she dug in trenches, dug 2 (Not One, oh no!) post holes and lots of other things. I was truly basking in glory when Erin walked away and Frank looked up at me and said he was impressed, he can't even get his wife to come down and look at the dirt without a nice outfit and their new poodle-like puppy. After that I just thought about how awesome that was, I could never be with someone who could not look at dirt for fear of getting her shoes dirty.

Now for why she was digging in trenches. I will not dive too far into it, because a LOT has been going on. So I will list what is going on:

• Try to keep old septic system for use in bathroom.
• Find out pipe is angled from tank wrong way and water runs back into the bathroom.
• Dig around and find the tank (and top) on the first try!
• Find the tank in good condition.
• Rent a Bobcat Backhoe.
• Dig Up trenches between 3 separate buildings to run water and sewer lines. (picture to come)
• The water pipe from the city to the property busted.
• The house had no water.
• The pipe was put together 3 times (it busted in different places the first 2 times), I did not work on this.
• The pipes were fixed.
• All but one of the trenches were filled, there are still 2 pipes left to connect to the septic tank.

Wonder if it will work?

In the meantime we:

• Hammered tin down into the barn floor to fix some uneven places on the wooden floor.
• Built buffet tables. Need to add another table to each section. (total of 24' of table on each side of barn).
• Placed all fans and working on getting the 'hay drying fan' working. If not, I might be looking at evaporative cooling.

5 weeks left and I'm actually having fun with this. And just in case you were wondering a couple select songs have been added to the playlist...

Bathrooms, Music and Lights

Still working on the bathrooms and right now they are they are the only things causing a bit of stress. The main reason why is that the guy who owns the place has not been holding up to his end of the deal. The deal was that I would give my time to help build. Well within this past week he has not been around when he said he would be. My brother traveled to town to work for the week (which is great!), but when he arrived to work there was no one there to work with him. And putting in bathrooms is not a skill that none just knows. So I am ranting a little at the bathroom situation. I have 2 full weekends left to work, looks like it is time to make backup plans. I think we could still finish, but it would be on an aggressive timeline. I'm in, but I'm not so sure the owner is...

In other news I have started working on the playlist for the Reception. Here are some of the things you may hear:

Everybody Have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung
Runaround Sue - Dion
Groove Is In The Heart - Dee Lite
Come Fly With Me - Sinatra
Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leopard
U Can't Touch This - M.C. Hammer
Stayin' Alive - The Bee Gees
and I'm embarrassed to say -> the Cha Cha Slide (Original Radio)

I have also been working on lighting and I think we have come up with something. It requires buying 425 C9 bulbs, 800' of lighting material and a few more things. Should be interesting. Erin, Allen (my brother) and I all went up to the Rockwood and tested it last night.

So things are going well and I'm having fun, lot's left to do.

Bring it on!

Diggin a hole

So yesterday at the Rockwood I did exactly that with a new coworker of mine. He lives in Radford just finished school and was looking for something to do. I had mentioned building bathrooms and he was up for it. We dug an area out for a sidewalk to the women's bathroom door and took a tour of the area. Frank was having professional pictures taken of the place to update his website and there was another younger couple there booking the place for next April! I'm so glad I'm not waiting till next April! Well in conversation I find out that my coworker, Ben, builds furniture. It just so happens that old piles of Oak are lying everywhere, so Ben strikes a deal with Frank to work at the Rockwood for some of the wood. Looks like I may be getting extra help on building those bathrooms.

I also foam insulated one of the doors and dug a trench for the waterline. The evening ended sitting on the front porch, relaxing and enjoying the evening talking. It only furthered my belief that a porch is an essential element in my future house search (whenever that may be).

Next work day: Saturday
My father is coming to help out, should be interesting.

Tonight is Wedding Wednesday, looking to get plenty done!

The Barn

Barn Layout:
Recently I have been spending some time planning out the Barn layout. The latest challenge has been trying to figure out how to hang & space some of the lighting. We are hoping to use 12" Chinese Lanterns with C9 bulbs and are not sure how to space them to make sure there is enough light. So we ordered a few and they are hopefully on the way. It looks like we can fit roughly twenty six tables that are 5' in Diameter each.

Bathroom:
The bathrooms still have a long way to go. The latest project has been running water and electric to the room. We also cut the main sewage pipe and are trying to figure out what tank it is connected to and if it will be usable. If not we need to bury a new tank :) And of course there is always tiling, painting, sheet rock installation, hardware installation and all the other things. So yeah, there is quite a bit left. I'll be working this week on Tuesday, Saturday and hopefully some on Sunday.

Ventilation:
I have the 2 commercial sized fans put back together! One of the belts is a little looser than I'd like it, but I'm confident the fan will run for 3 hours :) After that I'm going to look to sell them. There are also 2 doors in the roof that we may be able to open to release hot air, there are also platforms which I can set 2 of the misting fans. So things are looking okay there. Of course I won't be able to test until late June when the temps heat up. I may or may not need to order more fans...

Overall:
Overall I am pleased with our progress. I am glad I am as involved as I am. Maybe not the norm, but I'm not the normal guy. I was talking with Erin last night and we have enjoyed the process and I've found a lot of it fun. I'm meeting new people, organizing, learning new skills and working with my soon to be wife. For her I'd build the whole barn if I had to.