Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

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

We finished pressure washing the rest of the barn ceiling early Saturday and  also worked on the wiring some more.   While the walls were drying off, we worked on the back fence row, cutting down low hanging tree branches and weed whipping.  Also mowed around both ponds, between the grape vines and the blackberry rows and drug load of brush to the burning pile behind the garden.

The rain started late Saturday afternoon, and we worked in the barn after that.  Jeff continued pointing the rocks on the back wall.  Jens, Tina and Lars worked on insulating between the studs, and then cutting and hanging drywall.  There were a lot of “tricky” pieces to cut, but Jens did a great job working around old crooked barn beams.  By Sunday afternoon, the drywall was up!