We finished the downstairs barn renovation project:

• Pointed all the stone walls (3 walls)
• Dug out the old dirt floor, ran drainage pipes and cemented it
• Tore out the old horse stalls, cow stanchions and feed troughs
• Installed new windows
• Installed new entrance door
• Build window frames using oak boards from the old horse stalls
• sanded polyurethaned window frames
• Rebuilt the one wooden wall
• Drywalled and painted the interior of the wooden wall
• Refaced the outside of the barn walls that were not stone
• Closed off sections between old beams toward the outside
• Completed rewired everything
• New outside and inside lighting
• Painted all new sections of the barn “barn red”
• Build a “crush pad”
• Installed railing on crushpad, painted it barn red also

All this in less than a year – and just in time for the wedding!

Finally finished “mudding” and sanding all the drywall – quite a challenge with all the crooked old beams and rough edges.  Even found time to “prime” the drywall during the week.  We finally had to make a decision for the color of the walls – our choices, we decided, were limited by the colors found in the various stones of the barn walls.  Upon closer examination of the stones, there were a myriad of colors.  Jeff’s preference was for a “real color”, not another version of beige or brown, which narrowed our choices somewhat.  We ended up narrowing our search to a rosy sort of brick color or a darkish purple.  We got chips from both rocks, took those to Lowes and tried matching them to paint strips – then bought 4 sample colors.  The dark purple shade, called “Smoked Mulberry”  was the one!

We made lots of progress this weekend with finishing the barn in time for the wedding : 

• Painted the railing on the crush pad
• Painted siding on the front and side of the barn
• 3rd coat of drywall put on and sanded inside
• Window frames built from old boards we took off the horse stalls
• Cut and painted boards for wedding signs