Large structures always dominate the working space in the Imagination Corporation’s shop, making it hard to walk from one end to the other without carefully picking a winding path between them. That certainly describes the shop these days! The Copper Crown’s castle tower and roof are two large pieces. They are almost ready for the spray insulation which will be done shortly. Then we’ll finish the interiors of both pieces and put the shingles on the roof. That will make them ready to lift into place, hopefully by the end of next month.
Today was a big sculpting day as the crew did the complete castle tower exterior of the Copper Crown Suite in the Hazelnut Inn. Outside was a blustery winter day (cool, rainy and windy) while inside we worked in comfortable shirtsleeves. Next week we’ll lift off the top cone to do the shingle work and also begin the paint work on outside of the tower. The inside will be sprayed with insulating foam and then we will do all of the interior finish work prior to lifting it into place as a complete unit. That will save a lot of time on scaffold and ladders!
If you look close at the half round panels over the windows you will see an interesting detail. Above each of the four windows there appears an initial. HS, PS, JS and HS. These are the initials of the Sawatzky family members; Hailey, Peter, Juniper and Henry. One small detail of thousands we will lovingly incorporate throughout the Hazelnut Inn.
Work on the Hazelnut Inn has slowed over the Christmas holidays as the crews took off time for celebrating with their families. The carpenters are substantially complete and the roofers are working on the last roof. It won’t be long until everything is watertight and locked up. In the new year the plumbers and electricians will begin their work in preparation for the insulation to begin. Once the heating is on we can begin the interior work in a big way. Meanwhile we continue to do the prefabrication of pieces in the shop.
The carpenters are busy framing and sheeting in the final bits of the Copper Crown’s roof and should be done tomorrow. While they do that work, we are busy in the shop crafting various details for the North Star suite. Today, we sculpted the beam ends that will be mounted under the tower soffits. The beams feature a heavy duty, plasma cut and welded, steel sea horse brackets to go with the nautical theme inside. They’ll be ready to put up just after the New Year. We can hardly wait!
As the roofers nailed the last shingles on the North Star suite the carpenters were busy nailing the giant trusses in place on the Copper Crown suite. The roof is one of the most complex designs I have ever seen with two towers, one dormer, eight different pitches and all of it intersecting in various places. The trusses formed the bulk of the roof with the balance being stick framed in place. It’s definitely complicated but it will look fabulous when finished! All of the ceiling will be vaulted and the space it creates inside is already breathtaking even in the rough framed state. Once we sculpt the faux curved beams which will appear to hold it all up the effect will be unreal! Stay tuned…
