the barn est fini!

Most of this summer, I have spent designing the new barn, watching the old barn come down piece by piece, and the new barn go up. And here it is. I am very pleased; - it is a long term dream realized.

The left hand side is obviously a garage, but big enough for a work bench at the rear, and to hold my canoe, too.

The right hand side is a studio - a place for me to make a mess and not have to clean up, a place that is heated with a very green, propane fired, efficient boiler feeding the plastic tubing underneath the concrete slab floor. It is quite toasty.

Upstairs is completely undeveloped, and everyone but me seems to have grand dreams for it. So far, no one has contributed any money though, so nothing will be done for now.

Some memorable parts of the barn, however, are inside. I could find no one who would say that they could save the old barn, but my contractor Bill Dighton was good enough to take it down piece by piece, saving what he could of posts, beams, and planking. In the end, not many of the posts and beams were worth much, though there is one that was 20 feet tall which we used in the stair well. Others were used at corners, under sinks, and for general support here and there.

The real treasure that we found was in the haymow, where the floor was just rough sawn boards that had been laid down perpendicular to each other, in two layers. These were all mostly 18-23 feet long, and had no nail holes. They had never been nailed down - virginal if you will. We used these to create the ceiling in the studio, and to line the stair well. They are gorgeous and make me very happy.

Another memorable thing are the stair treads. The old barn was in large part supported by a large white birch. Not thinking everything through very well, I had the tree taken down and sawn into boards - beautiful ones, too. But taking the tree down, and then pulling out the stump had the effect of removing one quarter of the sill of the old barn. The tree had grown into, around and through the sills of the barn, and the barn started to tilt. So it had to come down. But I still had the birch boards, and now they have been made into the stair treads of the new barn. They, too, make me quite happy.

But the most memorable part of the barn, really, is the weathervane - the subject of a prior blog. It was my father's, and now resides on my barn. Who knows where it will go next? Or where I will? Mostly though, for now, I am happy to stay right here, working in my barn, and staying warm!