Tag Archives: barn

I should have known this was coming.

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The Barn Mahal is the gift that keeps on giving. It grows. It changes. It morphs into something I no longer recognize as a barn.

Why do I say this?

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Because last week my husband took me shopping for the next addition to his man cave extraordinaire.

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Yes.

He wants a refrigerator.

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And because he’s a man who demands instant gratification, he wanted to go home with it that day… which we quickly discovered was impossible. Thank you Covid 19…. yet another reason you suck.

All the refrigerators pictured on this blog, every last one of the small barn appropriate models that were on the display floor?

Unavailable.

It was enough to send us to our local pub for a drink… or two, and lunch.

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Which for me was a massive fried haddock sandwich with homemade onion rings. For the husband?

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A tool box and the light filtering blind we bought for the window we always sit in front of. The sun shines through it something fierce and we were tired of our bartender talking to us with his hand over his eyes.

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For this kindness we refused payment… support your local businesses!…but received 4 free drinks when the bill was presented.

A win win.

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And then it was back to the elusive we’ll show it to you but you can’t have it, neener neener refrigerator shopping.

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The absolutely only one anyone had in stock was this small, wonderfully inexpensive model.

The husband vetoed that. Not enough room for beer.

So we spent a fruitless day, visited 7 stores and ended up coming home to order this one online.

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Ample beer storage will be had…

But not for a week or two.

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The blog where things are moved and hung.

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Since all the trim work was finished in the barn, it was time for a little decorating…. husband style.

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The old washing machine was slid across the floor.

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A few military helicopter pictures were hung.

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And of course….

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His favorite sign of all was prominently placed.

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Moving back inside….

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A second tier of shelves was built into every corner.

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And then it was time to go shopping upstairs.

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Apple press?

Check!

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Butter table?

Check!

And then my husband, the man who visibly cringes every time I put a nail hole in our walls….

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The man who has given me hell for each and every thing I have ever hung in our home…. decided this would be his I love me section and plans to fill it with photos and plaques while turning his barn walls into Swiss cheese.

I admit, I may have cackled at this point. The irony was simply too strong.

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A bar and a tree.

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Next week a contractor will be here to build a bar in our barn.

Yes, you read that correctly, a contractor… one we will pay. Actual money. That surprised me since the husband has does most of the Barn Mahal construction himself, but this guy also built the bar at our local pub… so instead of having a spouse made amateur facsimile, we’ll have a serious bar.

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With these giant extremely heavy boards the husband has kept from the original framing back in 2012.

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The boards that have been moved, shifted, relocated, bumped into and cursed for 8 long years…. so all I can say is, yay.

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Of course the other day we had to move them one last time.

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Because my other half wanted to get an idea what the future boozer would look like.

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And yes, that’s a driftwood Christmas tree on the right.

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My girlfriend made it, used it one year, then gave it to me for our porch. Unfortunately we experience a cross breeze from our neighbor’s field equivalent to the Ames research center wind tunnel NASA uses to test its rockets. That tree literally flew. Which is generally not what you want Christmas decorations to do.

So it’s been inside the barn for a few years and despite my pleading that it would be a nice addition to the bar room, husband wants it gone.

Tons of useless rusty crap? He’ll find the room. One unique and quirky decorative tree? Bye bye.

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How many tables does one man need?

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After the Barn Mahal clean out… there was open space. Glorious, uncluttered open space. I knew it wouldn’t last, but I appreciated it all the same.

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And when I looked around? There was a table and chairs.

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Okay, we’re building a bar for that… but whatever.

The next day?

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There was another table and chairs.

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The day after that 3 more tables had migrated their way in. WTH? Is the husband planning on opening a cafe….

Which is exactly what I asked him during our inaugural beer.

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No, it wasn’t our first time on the nectar of the gods merry go round, but it was the first time we drank inside the barn, seated at a table, with heat.

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I never did get an answer to my why do you need 5 fricking tables question… but we did manage to get that stupid mobility scooter we wasted $850 on last year up and running again.

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We purchased it second hand for his brother, who swore he needed it… until we gave it to him free of charge, when he decided he didn’t want it after all. 😡

We tried selling it last year but didn’t have any luck. Now the husband wants it gone so I’m going to list it again… for half what we paid, damn it…. and see what happens.

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Note to self? It’s probably not a good idea to drink beer for hours and then fully charge a scooter.

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The following day I figured if I couldn’t beat the too many tables paradigm, I’d join it… and hung a little something of my own for flavor.

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Perfect!

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The transformation has begun.

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The pool table was uncovered, brushed and racked.

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A hat and coat rack was hung by the door.

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And a few vintage WWII propaganda posters from 1943 I’ve been meaning to frame were framed and displayed.

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It was during this time we decided the ugly bracing pole in the middle of the room… which was never supposed to be there but was deemed necessary when we noticed the top floor bounced when we walked on it during the original construction…. needed to be spruced up.

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The (now lovely) wood walls and trimmed windows demanded it.

I expected to blog about the normal nightmare of measuring and cutting and cursing but things went remarkably well.

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Maybe we’re finally getting the hang of it.

So…. the before.

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And the after.

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Please don’t ask why he put my porch barrels on the loveseat. I have no reasonable explanation for that.

The end is in sight. I think…

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A few more windows needed trimming…

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Which meant a lot more measuring, cutting and cursing…

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Why the cursing?

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Because the last window was not what you… or any semi sober person… would call square.

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Oops.

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Cover the gap with quarter round, trim…. then call it good and move on to the porch door.

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Yes, the porch is my domain … so the porch door has a seasonally appropriate wreath. Man cave be damned.

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Trimming this slapped together frame for a door that came from the dump proved challenging.

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And yes, the language got as colorful as the wreath.

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But it was only when the husband looked down…

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And realized the floor moulding should meet the vertical door trim… not the other way around… that he knew he had some tinkering to do.

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But viola!

Adjustments were made and everything that needed to be trimmed was finally trimmed.

Is this the end of the Barn Mahal interior construction?

Only time will tell.

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Barn, Belgian beer and Brussel sprouts.

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We were back in the barn this weekend and ran the new heat pump for the first time. It’s a big space so it took a while to warm up… but the building held the set temperature all day, which means all our stuff and seal each and every god damn gap insulation work…

Worked.

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But there were still a few more windows to trim and that’s when things went downhill.

There was sputtering, mumbling, cursing and okay…. small pieces of wood may or may not have been flung across the room.

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When the wood started flying? I knew it was time for a distraction… so I trudged down to our crap filled underground nightmare basement and retrieved a treasure we purchased a few years ago.

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A neon bar sign from the Ommegang brewery in New York. We stumbled on them when we visited the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and fell in love with their Belgians.

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https://www.ommegang.com/

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If you’re ever in the area, check out their tasting room in the old barn… and if you’re visiting this time of year? Try my favorite.

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There’s a tavern in Brussels famous for it’s pigeon racing?

Sounds like my kind of place.

And speaking of Brussels…

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When you live across the street from an organic vegetable farmer?

You never know what will show up on your doorstep in the morning.

👍

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Back in the barn.

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The husband was back at it this past weekend.

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Finishing up the (not so) temporary (not so) easy access heat blocker to the upstairs.

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By the time I walked in he had the insulation board attached to the zip siding board …

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Had rigged up small pieces of insulation board on the top step..

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And was busy stuffing Roxul in the small holes.

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And the even smaller small holes.

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Our old doe was munching under the apple trees…

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And Mike Pence was still where no one wanted him to be.

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So much stuffing.

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Please remember… when this barn was built it was not meant to be an airtight and heated space, so there’s a lot of scrambling required to make it one now.

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So when all else fails?

Caulk.

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And then, for the man who didn’t want to use insulation board?

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Another piece of insulation board.

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So yes, there’s insulation board, on top of insulation board, on top of zip siding.

I dare the hot air to seep through that!

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When that was finished and blocked off, it was time to tackle weatherstripping the porch door.

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You know, the free one he brought home from the dump. The one without a frame or threshold. The non standard size nightmare that has gaps all the way around it and at least a two inch above the floor clearance.

Good times.

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Truer words have ne’er been spoke.

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Why does he make everything twice as difficult as it has to be?

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We have a barn that really isn’t a barn. What started out as storage space for motorcycles and lawn mowers has morphed into a custom built man cave… and now that the man cave has a heat pump? The upstairs has to be temporarily blocked off for winter before the staircase turns into a chimney.

This should have been a simple project.

I told the husband – cut a piece of insulation foam. The heat pump installer told the husband – cut a piece of insulation foam. The friend that helps him now and then told the husband – cut a piece of insulation foam.

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Which is why the husband made a hinged door out of zip siding.

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Did I mention the husband doesn’t like to be told what to do?

After a laborious day of cursing and figuring and adjusting and fitting and more cursing….

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The husband came home to cut a piece of insulation foam.

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Which he wanted to attach to that hinged door of zip siding.

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This involved more measuring and cutting ..

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And fitting and pushing and removing and more measuring and cutting.

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Please note the non OSHA approved chunk of wood dismantling the saw’s safety feature.

More fitting.

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More measuring and cutting.

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More fitting.

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Halfway through the process, Mike Pence stopped by to say hello.

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And finally after I helped him measure, cut and fit for 3 hours to no avail… I snuck out.

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For the sake of my sanity…. as well as our marriage.

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When in doubt, wear red.

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I just realized I haven’t posted a photo of the big barn since the staining and painting were completed.

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Needless to say I’m very pleased.

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The nice thing is, the husband was pleased as well.

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I know this because I overheard him talking to the painter saying he wasn’t sure he would like a red barn and that he’d fought his wife over it… boy did he!… but in the end, even he had to admit it looked great.

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Technically it’s not totally done, as the crew is going to box in the eaves on the overhang. But in Maine, you have to paint until the weather turns, so they’ll be back another day to finish that.

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My porch furniture cushions also need to be recovered in a fabric that doesn’t clash.

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But baby barn approves.

And we have a red and white barn!

Yay.

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