Tag Archives: baby barn

I thought we were done!

July 30, 2020 Rivergirl 12 Comments

The baby barn.

It really is the gift that keeps on giving. Like venereal disease, but with splinters.

As you know, the baby barn had a hard packed dirt floor when we remodeled it. It had a hard packed dirt floor when we moved here 18 years ago and it had a hard packed dirt floor when it was originally built sometime in the mid 1970’s …

And for some inexplicable reason, the husband removed some of that hard packed dirt when he was redoing the frame.

So for the last few months there’s been a decided drop off at the far end.

I’ve said repeatedly he needed to back fill that section and level it off, but no.

I walked out there the other day and found him busy with a shovel instead.

Removing 26 years worth of hard packed dirt.

Why?

I’ll let him tell you…

Good grief Charlie Brown!

The man is a sucker for punishment.

22 wheelbarrow loads full of dirt dumped on the outer edges of our property line later….

He had a smooth playing field…. and an aching back.

And I was called in to assist.

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Baby barn beautification.

July 4, 2020 Rivergirl 20 Comments

I think I forgot to post the final results of all the husband’s ~~he didn’t want to do it and grumbled the whole time~~ hard work bordering my garden bed.

And while I’m not usually a huge marigold fan…..

I do like the yellow and orange colors against the red barn, so I filled the bed with them and mulched.

With a baby chucker watching me the entire time. Thankfully marigolds are unappetizing to wildlife….. so he sniffed and moved on.

Viola.

Baby barn beautification complete.

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Behold the majesty.

June 22, 2020 Rivergirl 40 Comments

The majesty (and the God damn miracle I’m not divorced) that is the completed baby barn remodel.

And yes even though it’s as small as a shed, there was a horse living in it before we moved in, so it’s a barn.

A baby barn.

And I have the hay holder thingies to prove it.

Please note ‘hay holder thingies’ may not be the correct equine term, but I was born in Jersey. The only thing I know about horses is who placed in the fourth at Belmont.

We started with this….

And finished with this….

Looks a little better than before, eh?

No comments on the empty garden bed, that has yet to be redone.

Before….

After…

Before….

After….

And to think it only took us a 10 mere months.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise.

We started it’s larger father in 2012…. and haven’t really finished that yet either.

rush

Yup.

That’s our motto.

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I needed a holiday from the holiday.

June 19, 2020 Rivergirl 19 Comments

Our last day of the long Memorial Day weekend meant a morning of yard work.

Tag team mowing with the husband on his new toy and me slogging along with the old push mower.

It was a gorgeous day.

The pear tree was blooming.

The mallows I’d planted were thriving.

And everything had finally turned green.

Except the baby barn which I decided to start painting that afternoon.

Let me preface this by saying I used to love to paint.

I used to.

Until I had to use an artist’s tiny brush around all the nooks, corners, flashing and crooked angles on that beast.

Did I wear some paint, get covered in dirt, rip my pants, tumble off a ladder and work until almost 8:00 at night?

Yes I did.

But paint was applied.

And covered a multitude of sins.

Three sides done, one to go!

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Baby barn progress.

June 4, 2020 Rivergirl 26 Comments

So work continued on our project from Hell.

Trim completed, we started shingling the back half of the roof….. and if you know anything about the baby barn?

You know it wasn’t going to cooperate.

Oh, the first row was perfectly level.

Unfortunately…. it was also 5/8ths of an inch short.

If you’ve ever done roofing, you know what a nightmare this is. Tiny little strips of shingles had to be cut for every row and you can’t put them at the end. No, that would be too easy. They had to be tucked somewhere in the middle so it didn’t screw up the pattern… which meant cutting one other shingle on every row as well.

Time consuming? You could say that.

It literally took us all friggin’ day to do the back half of this little roof.

Okay, so the fact that the husband bought the wrong size flashing at Home Depot the night before (because he went without me and therefore to the wrong store) and then had to go back to Home Depot to return it the next day and get the right size flashing (again without telling me and therefore to the wrong store ) and because Home Depot doesn’t sell the right size flashing ( we’d bought the right size flashing across town at Lowes a month ago ) he also had to take a trip to Lowes.

The moral of that lengthy run on sentence? Tell your wife before you go somewhere so she can tell you you’re wrong. It will save you time and aggravation….. and she’ll thoroughly enjoy it.

No, that ridiculous waste of time didn’t help.

Of course, yours truly telling the husband he should have checked with me first didn’t help either…. but you know I had to.

Needless to say I put some physical distance between us after that comment.

I’m not sure the big barn porch was far enough, but at least it was out of hammer strike range.

So progress was slow, but it was progress.

And here’s a picture of a spider carrying off a dead fly….

Just for variety’s sake.

And then finally it was done.

But I didn’t get a picture because I was inside cooking dinner.

Hey, you’ve seen one crooked baby barn roof, you’ve seen them all.

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And we’re back.

June 1, 2020 Rivergirl 25 Comments

Baby barn work commences…. again.

And I have to ask – are we the only ones who take a year to remodel what is in essence a small shed?

On second thought, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.

So we’ve moved around to the back half to finish our utterly favorite part…..and by that I mean the hellish nightmare that is angled trim work. I believe we’ve established we suck at this and not wanting to break tradition, we still do.

How badly do we suck?

I’m glad you asked.

Badly enough to require shaving corners with less than modern tools if you’re my other half.

What….

You mean 1940’s saws aren’t still viable members of the tool arsenal?

unnamed

Yes, that’s always my reaction as well….

But the husband says it still has life left in it.

Corners were turned…

Though not all of them where they should be…

As the poppa barn ( who’s still screaming for paint and agrees with River how wonderful he would look in a nice rusty red with white trim ) looked on in horror.

To be continued.

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So… this happened.

May 23, 2020 Rivergirl 14 Comments

The husband mowing the grass over the septic tank?

Not blog worthy.

But the husband mowing the grass over the septic tank with one arm because he’s done some kind of damage to his left shoulder and the appendage is hanging uselessly?

Relatively blog worthy.

It took me a week of him alternating ice packs and heating pads. A week of him moaning, groaning and being perfectly miserable before I could get him to the doctors for an exam and an X-ray.

Thankfully nothing was broken or dislocated. They said it might be muscle trauma, might be a pinched nerve. In other words they have no idea.

A weeks worth of Prednisone has helped a bit, but just when we were making baby barn headway….

It seems we’ll be looking at this a while longer.

I’m seriously beginning to think that building is cursed.

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We are definitely not mathematicians.

April 30, 2020 Rivergirl 11 Comments

On a gloomy, overcast Sunday morning….we started putting trim board on the baby barn at 9:00am.

At 10:00am we were still on the first piece.

And yes, at 11:00am we were still there as well.

Frustrating?

A wee bit.

Cutting angles is not our forte….. and it almost made me wish I’d paid more attention in 7th grade geometry.

A lot of serious thought, planning… not to mention cursing…. was going on right there.

And before you say “Use a mitre saw!”, we did. But the building is less than straight and square and when we finally did manage to get it right?

It was still wrong.

Thank God for flashing. It covers a multitude of sins.

So this side looked good.

But when we turned the corner?

Not so much.

How the Hell did that happen?

There was only one solution.

Sit on the big barn porch and photograph it from far away.

Yes.

Much better.

More flashing, more nightmarish trim board.

And if you’re asking what I contributed to the project?

Besides acting as a general gopher…. because when the husband is up his tools are down, and when he’s down his tools are up… my contribution was this:

Classic tunes on shuffle.

There he goes again, ever the optimist.

Thankfully the husband used to do roofing when he was young, so yes. The shingles were perfectly level.

And because he was so thrilled something was finally level?

He checked it again.

And again.

I gave up on him at 6:00pm and headed inside for dinner, but he was out there until 8:00 trying to reach the top.

He didn’t quite make it.

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Because I know you were anxiously awaiting it’s return…..

April 27, 2020 Rivergirl 19 Comments

It’s back.

The ongoing baby barn remodeling saga…. and for those of you just joining us? Consider yourself lucky you missed the first 300 episodes.

Winter is over in Maine, we think…. so work has begun anew.

On Saturday afternoon rotted wood was replaced.

And the silly man I’m married to tried to make everything square.

Look at him with his little level. Isn’t that cute?

If you remember anything from last year, you’ll know the terms level and square are completely relative when dealing with this nightmare of a building.

Darth

But hope springs eternal, and maybe sometime before we’re through that damned bubble will be in the right position.

The last of the Zip siding was installed…

And yes, that’s my husband’s back…. as he refused to smile for my camera.

I can never quite figure his modus operandi when he works on a project……. and wondered why he made his way from the outside in to meet in the middle.

This doesn’t usually bode well when you’re using a tongue and groove design.

I (oh so) helpfully told him this, but of course he paid no attention because I’m a woman and what do I know?

men

Well, yes.

As a matter of fact he is.

But when he tried to fit that last piece?

I admit it, I chortled while he cursed.

Which I enjoyed, because really… the world needs more chortling.

Apparently I did chortle a little too loudly because I also got the look.

Which, after 36 years…. he should know has positively no effect.

A little trimmed tar paper later and he called it day.

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A little catch up… the baby barn, a sunrise and some deer.

March 23, 2020 Rivergirl 21 Comments

Now that the Virginia vacation saga is finally over, it’s time to clear out the photo files.

If you remember… before we left for the Cape Cod vacation in November, the husband was desperately trying to finish the remodel on our baby barn from Hell before the snow started flying.