Creating something new, day 51
2 days later.
Moving in.
When I wake up, the ship is already at anchor in the harbor at my island. We left Borgarsandr quite late yesterday after a lot of shopping and loading, but Asta seems to find a certain pleasure in knowing the surroundings and shallows well enough to be able to sail part of the route through darkness and the rest when it starts to get light, at least when the moonlight and the weather is good.
We can see the reflections from the copper roof through the treetops, but I don't want to take a quick look by myself, and everyone thinks we should go together. Had the ship been anchored only 40m meters further south, we would have seen the mansion better, because apparently the upper part of the roof is so high up that it can be seen and in the right direction the suns reflections can be seen a long way. I'll probably cut down some trees so I get a better view from my bedroom.
Iselin made sure that the maids got a couple of sets of nicer everyday dresses and underwear, and bought extra for future personel. Caecilia is hesitant about underwear, especially panties, but she isn't poor and apparently bought two Valhalla sets, one in purple and one in orange. I guess she doesn't see much point in the everyday or sport models. She would probably love Kari's special set, but thats probably not for general sale as Kari wants it to be just for her and for me to appreciate her in.
The one who has been most uncomfortable and lost is Caecilia, although she seems to get along surprisingly well with at least Ciara, Jane and Iselin. I have learned that Caecilia can play music on a couple of different instruments, sing, dance, can tell a lot of Sagas and stories, poetry, play games etc. She can be our bard or something, and it's not wrong to have her as the island's musician and entertainer when we have guests. The rich should have someone like that. The others have talked to her more and Caecilia seems very interested in Jane's painting and art. Caecilia's used to a leisurely life between 'clients' and feasts, and she is used to being served and having a slave maid who take care of any hard work. I havn't talked much with her, but I understand that since she's 'mine', I'm expected to make sure she have good food and housing. She will probably buy a slave again to take care of her needs, and then I will have to feed that slave too. I've made sure Caecilia understands that I don't like the concept of slaves, but as Caecilia and most see it, it makes more economic sense to buy a slave woman than to hire a maid, since a slave is a one time cost and an investment.
Caecilia and her probable freed slave is an economic burden, but I already feed Jane, the guards, the maids and the cook, and there will probably be a man to take care of the mansion and animals. So another couple of mouths to feed isn't that much more of a burden. Especially with my new property I should have plenty of food to feed them. Most of that land is something like 3-4 days trip to the south, and according to King Asbjörn is a large estate with good fertile soil and plenty of animals. The others talked about the land, while the main thought in my head was; fuck, half a weeks journey, when in Midgard it would be a 3 hour drive. And it will be winter, with winter weather and short days. So it might be more days. Either rocking over the sea, or slogging through cold wind, rain, snow and muddy roads.
I pretty muched zoned out thinking about ways to improve travelspeed, making it more comfortable and adding a communication option to get updates and such so that I won't have to visit that often. It will probably take years to make a good stonepaved road with a lot of river fords, bridges and ferries, and it will cost a lot, and pass over a lot of other peoples land. Those people might object to improving the road. They will loose face if they let me pay for it, and they might not want to pay for it themselfs. And then its the complication of increased amount of travelers, which according to tradition should be offered food and stay over the night if asked. Which will mean further resistance to improving the road. I might have to convince larger landowners or villages about the benefits of building and staffing an inn, with different pricing options including a free stay one. Yeah, that will be so easy.
Jane has had some setbacks with colors, and some progress. Jane found a batch of expensive good colors, which I of course let her buy simply because she would need it. Good craftsmanship often needs good tools, and I wouldn't have hesitated if it was for myself. We're both convinced that one is indigo blue even though people here don't call it indigo, and she also bought another shade of blue which she says is Egyptian blue and should be brightly shining in IR, which actually might be useful for other things in the future. Also a sharp red Cinnabar, which she says she must be careful with as it is mercury sulfide, and was classically used to create mercury. She now got a good palette of colors and everything she needs to be able to try out different binders, varnishes and oils, and will prepare canvases to test oil painting. When she started talking about 'Alla prima', 'fat over lean', 'values' and what color scale different masters preferred and other Latin expressions I didn't understand, it was obvious that Jane wanted to show her knowledge and prove her value.
The ship's cargo space is filled with furniture, utensils, food, drinks, oil barrels, toilet paper, fabrics and of course our personal belongings and all my constructions, finished or not. And the loom that Iselin wanted, even if it's just a primitive vertical construction instead of what I call a loom. There is apparently no real horisontal looms here, which surprised me, because they are not that complicated, but I get that big looms simply take up too much space in most houses to be worth it, and the vertical one works well enough. You just have to look at their crafts, fabrics and embroidery to see that. I will try to build a 'real' loom for Iselin in the future. If she wants to weave, I will try to make her the best loom I can.
In addition to the above, there are all the extra things from the craftsmen in Borgarsandr. Add decorative things like tapestries, draperies and I don't know what. They shopped a lot, and I have already promised my sambos that we will go on another shopping trip when the mansion is completed, as things will have been forgotten.
Up on the deck are the carriage and the wagon, and they are leading all the horses to the pastures. The carriage, wagon and some of the horses will be used to transport the cargo up to the mansion, but the horses will be allowed to run and streach their legs before.
The cat took the trip relatively well, but is currently kept back in the large basket that acts as a cat basket. Not optimal and the cat isn't happy, but I want to introduce the cat to the mansion, instead of letting the cat go free here in the harbor. The cat has been given a simpler leash, and was allowed to take a walk on land. The cat also got its own water bowl and a small open basket with a padded cushion. Everyone except Jane thinks it's very eccentric to treat a cat like that, but they're not really surprised.
Masterbuilder Pedr has met up and is waiting for us.
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Its with tense anticipation that our group walk on the road to check out our future home, and Iselin and Kari havn't been here since they were working on the house foundation. Just seeing the harbor's fairly large stone paved area and walking on the road feels so good - proper and luxurious. There are piles of building materials in the harbor and we quickly look at one of the 6x4 houses that are being built in the harbor area. The workers are working on the roof, which is almost finished, but the inside and floor are not finished yet, but give them a few more days.
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The horses seem to thrive in and enjoy the pasture, or they are just happy to escape the ship. Two separate work teams are working on the barn and its 6x4 house, and they're definitely making progressing here as well. Maybe a week or two until they're completed. This house didn't have any real purpose, but for now it will probably be Caecilias house in the beginning. However, she is rich and special enough that she probably should have something more luxurious. I mostly thought the house fit so this feels like its own farm, and future animal caretakers can live here. With a future lower wall facing the road, it will be a flat garden of about 4m in front of the house, and with a fence around it can look good. Even if the garden is only one meter higher than the road, it should give a slightly more powerful feeling to look down on the probably future farmyard between the barns. I don't really like to have a wide road separating the house from the barn, and the road going 'through' the farm, but it is as it is.
The vegetable land has plenty of lush green plants, but its something like 5 weeks since it was planted with generally good weather since then. Whether too dry or rainy. So atleast we will have some fresh greens with our food.
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It's very impressive to walk along the road around the cliff with the mansion on top, and I'm almost a little disappointed that I didn't even think about how effective it is to make an good first impression on visitors comming from this direction, and I'm glad that the planned place for the Academy is likely to have a similar effect from the other direction if travelers come from the Orusingen direction. The mansion should look good too comming along the road from that direction.
The cliffs are relatively high, and since they generally slope around 40-60 degrees, it builds in both deep and high, so the mansion is clearly visible from the road instead of being obscured by vertical rock walls, while it feels majestically high because the diagonal distance is longer than just the height would have been. You look up at an angle but look along the cliffs up to the mansion which then tower upwards. Its something of a visual illusion that makes it feel further away and taller than it is. The mansion is impressive and I think most people in my company, probably couldn't visualize what it would look like. How impressive the large copper roof is, and how beautiful its diamond-shaped tiles look. The roof shimmers in the sunshine when we walk along the road due to all the small edges of the tiles that are hand-shaped and not perfectly uniform from a machine. Even Jane is impressed, saying that it almost looks like a large skin from a dragon or snake of copper has been pulled over the roofs. I'm quite pleased that Jane is a little impressed with the mansion, because she's seen a hell of a lot more impressive buildings before, and apparently she expected me to build a stone castle.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
From a defense point of view, it feels quite effective that the rocks build outwards and not just vertically. There is no dead angle along the foot of the rocks, as they are a bit away, and the rocks are generally too steep to get up on, and with too poor grip. The last ice age really smoothed out a lot of the northern landscape, well, except the 200m heigh ridge it pushed ahead of itself to southern Sweden. Of course it is possible to climb up, and there are some easier paths up, such as where the road goes to the courtyard in the northwest, the slope bellow the cliffs in the north east or up on the cliffs in the south.
The copper roof is so worth all the gold it cost. Its a pity that it will darken and lose its luster but it is as it is, and I do not intend to try to stop it; the purpose isn't to be pretty but to protect, be watertight and very low maintenance. Eventually it will turn green and nice again. But I regret a little that I didn't get them to make a more undulating roof at the edges and ridge - it would have been a little prettier. I have to content myself with putting on some nice protruding dragon heads or similar at the ends, hopefully a carpenter can make something more 3D than the common 2D versions here.
The roofers are working on the last part on the west side of the wing's roof. They started with the wing after the exercise stand to get a little more practices, but after they felt confident enough, they would move on to finish the roof of the main building and then return to do the last on the wing. Pedr confirm that most of the inside is finished.
Most exterior windows also appear to be in place on the main building, but such as the mosaic windows in the attics are not in place and blocked, just like the small attic windows in the corners on the sides. It seems like many basement windows and the wings arn't in place either, but I guess the windows arn't finished yet. The window maker would hurry to send what he could, and we brought a few windows with us. The facade of the wing isn't finished either. The facade is not only for extra insulation but also to protect the log wall from the weather, and it also allow air to slowly circulate behind the facade and moisture can rise or drain out so that there shouldn't be any large moisture problems. The facade is also easier to replace than building a new house. I believe some of the old wooden buildings and churches in Norway used that principle and some still stand 800 years later, even though they use standing rough hewn planks and ore-pines according to the 'stave' principle, hence stave churches.
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Before we go inside, we walk around everything for a closer look. Norse elves are not afraid of getting dirty even with long dresses, and we walk counterclockwise, down the stairs and along the basement towards the pavilion. When the pavilion is eventually completed, it will probably be wonderful and very useful in the summer, and the guards might like to use it as a training area, and I can work on large projects there as well, like parts for an aircraft. The pavilion will be large; 17x10m with railing around the entire outside except the entrance towards the mansion. The height to the inside of the roof ridge will be 4.6m in the almost north-south, but roof support and reinforcements will of course lower the clearance to around 3m. The view is beautiful and depending on which end you're at, you have a view from the north, all the way west over the slump and its road, meadows and future orchard below, via the treetops to the south, and finally over the cliffs south of the mansion to the east. It feels special to stand here, and it seems like everyone already likes the pavilion, and it is not even finished. With a fine slate floor, it will be quite beautiful with wood carvings on the posts that hold up the roof, but it takes time and will be done later. My company have a bit of a hard time understanding why there is a fireplace in the middle of each short side when there are no walls, so I make a quick explanation why it can be practical before we move on.
Everyone looks a little puzzled at the stonefloor that is outside the southwest corner of the mansion, and its wooden beams that go up and over at regular intervals like a large wooden lattice with meter large holes. Another pavilion? Nope. Greenhouse, 40m2. No one understands. I say "Greenhouse" to Jane and she nods understandingly.
"All those big windows on the house have to have been insanely expensive, but this has to be atleast half the same amount of glass as the rest of the house!"
I confirmingly nod. "Its about 60%. The important rooms, and all bedrooms, will get inner windows too, to act as double glazing windows for insulation, so it will add the same amount. This building will have something like 150 square meters of glass." I point to the mezzanine window. "Just one of those huge windows have more glass than most higher standard longhouses, and there are four of those. And it will be double glazed. This building will have far, far more glass than any other building in Scandinavia."
"Ah! Of course there is no Christian cathedrals here."
"Correct. I don't know how it is down in Europe, but I've been told there are cathedrals or other large churches for their religions, atleast as works in progress. Midgard gothic cathedrals have something like 2000-6000 square meters of glass. Then again cathedrals are huge, and usually took 300 to 600 years to complete. This took less than 3 months. When I'm finished with the Academy and a few other buildings next summer, there will be more glass on this island than in Borgarsandr. The biggest costs of this mansion are windows and copper. The roof is something like 12 tons of copper."
"Dare I ask how much?"
"I havn't told my girlfriends, so I won't tell you. But I got a huge discount on both."
Jane's smile worries me as I just gave her a hold on me, so to change the subject, I ask: "Do you know about fruitwalls?" Her face makes it clear that this is not the case. "Its a technique used for centuries, before greenhouses. Big thick stonewalls lined up facing south, used to grow fruits and vegetables against. The stonewall works as thermal mass and stabilizes the temperature which creates a small microclimate and especially helps against frost."
"Oh! I've seen those!"
I explain that greenhouses were originally an improvement of fruit walls, but humans then went from making the stone walls. It is cheaper and much easier to just throw up a lot of glass. However, there are still villages in, for example, France that have funny architecture due to the old cultivation walls are massive and cost a lot to demolish, and some small area had 600km of walls. But the French weren't alone in using this. Together with progressive hardening and adaptation to the north, over many generations of the plants, the Russians developed the principle in the early 1900s to have fruit moats so some citrus fruits could be grown in climates with winter temperatures down to minus 20 degrees Celsius.
This is a coastal island in the archipelago, so it shouldn't be as cold and for as long as it can be inland, and I hope we will be able to grow a lot. I want vegetables and spices available most of the year, and if we can manage to harden plants and create a domestic production of vegetables and fruits not commonly grown here before, this greenhouse will be worth its weight in gold. They have some hardy winter plants I guess are cabbage or something, but I want something better and with more variety, even if it grows slowly. This isn't only for variety, but also to give us all the nutrients that the body needs. Jane definitely agrees with improving food variety. After her months in Hildifjoer, she has understood how terribly single-track the diet is that many people live on. We both assume diet deficiencies are common.
We have to be careful as we walk down the cliffs to the south and stand at a little distance and look up. Thats quite and impressive facade. Too bad that all the windows for the middle arn't finished, but there is a couple so I can't complain. The middle part of the main building has an open floor plan towards the entrance hall, where the corridors on both floors go to the sides, so those are important windows. All south windows to the rooms except the two in the wing above the greenhouse are finished and the facade is in place. They have planks prepared and have built scaffolding, so they're just waiting for the windows. I should have ordered the windows earlier, especially so that the greenhouse has also been completed faster, but I am satisfied with the high production pace that the window maker maintains, and he has expanded his capacity to meet my needs. There simply hasn't been such great demand for windows before.
I tell them that in the future there may be a small garden here up on the rocks, with a small pond, fruit trees and vegetable garden, but it requires stone walls and lots of soil even if we do it in terraces, so we'll see. It feels like a lot of unnecessary work when vegetables and fruit trees can be grown below the cliff about a hundred meters away, but it would be nice to have a secluded private garden. But a somewhat large garden will require significant amounts of stone for walls and ridiculously many wagon loads of soil. But considering how the women react, there is a very high probability that atleast a small garden will be built next year. We all liked the small secluded garden we had during our stay outside Borgarsandr.
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We have to go further south to reach the spot where its possible to walk down, and round the cliff back up to the east side with its balcony. Here, too, the three mosaic attic windows are missing and the holes are boarded up. My bedroom balcony wrap around the southeast corner of the mainbuilding - but mostly on the east side - and it looks good from here. It was mostly blocked from the road by treetops. The balcony is really impressively high up when you stand down here among the trees a bit below the cliff and look up at the house. The balcony must be 12m up from down here. The views should be impressive, and I can stand the morning sun in the summer. If the dark oiled overlapping blinds isn't enough, I just have to hang up extra drapes inside the blinds. It might be nice to have breakfast out on the balcony. The railing isn't finished yet, but a man is working on it. Alith catches my attention, and with a glance we can both see that the lower part of the support pillars against the foundation has not been completely covered yet, so you can see the axles that the balcony can rotate out on. Best to not point it out to the others.
We end our walk around and return up to the courtyard via the steep part just before the cliff face. Its not a vertical cliff here as most of the east side from the courtyard to a bit south of the mansion, but it was far easier to get up here before they use all the loose stone to build with. Maybe we should build a staircase here as a shortcut to the barn? It saves 2/3 of the distance.
The courtyard isn't really finished, but its nice and has a perfectly okay view. It also faces east towards the strait, although the oaks green treetops are in the way to see the barn, pastures and the harbor, but it is nice to stand and look out on the tree tops. In the winter the view till be better. A railing or wall must be built to prevent someone from falling down the cliff. Its probably 5-6 meters down, and not flat ground below.
We walk up on the slate floored veranda and the front door looks good and feels quite impressive, but after walking along the road around the cliff and across the courtyard, this mansion doesn't need a really impressive door. The gable copper roof just continues out over the entrance hall until it stops 2.7m above the veranda stairs. The overall impression is hard to beat, and it's probably good that I missed having them to put my logo or housemark on each door, as there is a beautiful mosaic window on each side of the front door that has my housemark. Stained glass on the outer edges, clear glass in the middle with my housemark. If I wanted to change color or design, it is now too late. When I look closer, I realize that the window maker really has changed the iron net inside so it follows the housemarks lines, and its damn hard to see that its special from the outside. And I know what I'm looking for.
I realise that they havn't installed the gutters yet, which is vitally needed for the water system, and to prevent the veranda stairs from having a waterfall when it rains, and who wants to walk through that? The veranda's small patio of 17m2 in the pocket between the wing and the entrance hall extension will also get drenched without gutters leading the water to the tanks in the basement. At least the drain is made as it should be, so there shouldn't be any standing water against the foundation. It's stone, but I'm a little worried about moisture and ice fracturing.