What are the most pragmatic costs involved with castle living (as opposed to Castle living)? Heating sounds like a big problem, if they're vaguely "authentic", since too much of London hadn't mastered not running the pipes indoors when I left (those houses were old houses--central heating was an add on to most of them, and expecting burst pipes was an every other year thing in a city with mad mild winters (no white Christmases in 6 years!).
Can you practically not heat some rooms? No, you buy a castle, you use the rooms. Which means you furnish the rooms. Cleaning--will that be different from a modern mansion of similar square mileage? More nooky and cranny-y?
Not a home-owner, can't imagine. Every time my cube-mate talks about the shenanigans of replacing the piping from the mains to his house, I kiss my lease again.
Serious negotiations at my house tonight--Agents of SHIELD is on opposite NCIS. Perhaps I can convince Hubby to watch NCIS online tomorrow.
Will NCIS be available? I know CBS is parsimonious and doesn't make it easy to find even when they do.
t / not helping
It is stopping me from watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine live, in which Samberg is markedly restrained and many other people are delightful, so I may flip from NCIS to it later in the season. For now, I will use other means. I'm in that "momentum but can't remember original rationale" period with NCIS. Please let this never happen with my other old show.
The electricity upgrades alone would probably cost as much as buying the castle in the first place, assuming you wanted TV and internet and a washing machine.
The plumbing upkeep on my less-than-100-years-old urban coop is a nightmare, I can't even imagine what it would be on an even older building with 10 times as many pipes. (Our 12-unit building has two $3k hot water tanks that each need to be replaced every 7-10 years. So multiply that out by however many sinks and tubs a castle has. Maybe you could save some money by installing a solar water heater, if your castle was somewhere warm and sunny?) Given the distance between your average castle and the nearest city, it would probably be cheaper just to keep a full-time plumber on staff.
I don't know what kind of heat most castles have - I mean, if it's just the original fireplaces and your castle comes with a forest attached, that's not a huge expense. But if you want to live in your castle year-round you probably want some kind of central heating system.
Keeping up the exterior facades to prevent water damage would be almost a full-time job, and could easily run into a couple million per year in masonry and engineering.
I'm only ten minutes into Blacklist, but I don't understand why the
Air and Space Museum
isn't gender neutral. Really, TV?
You know, you're all forgetting the fairy godmother that comes with the castle. Sheesh.
No! How can I have a castle plan without castle know how? These is key.
I also need to factor in the room and board for my topless handmen. They will be paid in nothing additional other than my silent gratitude, so it should be a small impact on the budget.
The plumber will do double duty as "guy that reads me stuff", so he better be prepared. And gravelly.
I just keep remembering Monarch of the Glen and how deeply in debt they were to the bank--lots of schemes to try to keep the estate afloat. Yikes.
To The Manor Born was my favourite "we're nobility, but broke, and refuse to stray from the ancestral lands."
If I can afford a castle, I can afford the upkeep. This is the Law of my Internal Landscape.
