Tag Archives: construction

Another weekend, another wall.

October 9, 2019 Rivergirl 26 Comments

Work on the baby barn project graduated from glacially slow to slow as molasses last weekend…. and we managed to frame a wall in 3 days.

Though to be fair, ripping off that old rotted pressboard is like Chinese water torture.

It literally shreds in your hands.

But slowly… we saw daylight.

And by Saturday afternoon we had open space and a center post that was barely hanging on.

And by barely?

I mean barely.

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The husband did the usual dirt shuffle in his ongoing attempt to level the building. A pipe dream at best as it was built in the mid 70’s… and it’s Maine.

Frost heave central.

Measuring is fun.

Ripping out posts that were nailed in with spikes?

Not so much.

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Pardon the sun glare and bad manicure… but damn.

Talk about overkill.

Framing started Sunday, with a new window taking center stage.

And continued when the husband decided to dig out all the dirt underneath the structure…

And lay paving stones in yet another attempt to level it.

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Then came the rain… and a mad dash to put everything away before it got soaked.

And then?

Then… the baby barn got a rainbow.

And I found my honey at the other end.

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Can I get an awwww?

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And so it goes….

October 3, 2019 Rivergirl 37 Comments

Work on the baby barn continues, albeit slowly.

My husband’s master plan involves a serious amount of temporary screwing, refitting, removing and replacing. He’s not a huge fan of measuring… but he’s a man.

This is not surprising.

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Of course this means 3 times as much work.

I think one planned demolition and rebuild would suffice…. but I’m a woman.

What do I know?

There’s also a good deal of shifting the husband’s ~~crap we don’t need now, nor will we ever need again~~ stuff from one place to another. Like the hurricane generator we bought in 1992 when we lived down south and haven’t used since.

Or the wheel weights for the tractor we no longer own.

Or the numerous tires for the cars we no longer own.

Or the table that went with the chairs we no longer own….

Right beside the small refrigerator I had no earthly idea we owned.

All of these things are heavy and filthy and must be moved over and over again because he can’t be convinced to throw them out.

Good times.

There was hammering.

And crowbar-ing …. and yes. A good deal of cursing because the structure is 45 years old and not exactly plumb.

There was also a good deal of displaced dirt.

Thanks to numerous woodchuck tunnels…

Which undermined our attempt to simply re-side and re-shingle the damned thing.

Now we have to completely dig up the hard packed floor and smooth it all out.

Doesn’t that sound like fun?

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Baby barn work continues.

September 29, 2019 Rivergirl 27 Comments

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my husband during our long and happy marriage, it’s that he doesn’t like to rush things.

Projects that should take a day, take a week. Projects that should take a week, take a month. Projects that should take a month, well… you get the idea. He’s been working on our big barn for what seems like forever and it’s still not finished.

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So our baby barn/shed needs to be torn down and rebuilt. Husband decided the frame of the building and the existing wood on the roof were sound, and is attempting to tear down the rotten parts and rebuild around them.

First off is the old shingles.

There’s no real reason for this picture other than the fact I love to see a man sweeping.

It’s porn for women.

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But I digress…..

Shingles off the front side, tar paper off the lower half.

Section of roof off… so he can remove the section of wall below.

It was at this point he decided to level the building.

And that involved stomping all my flowers into the dirt, which made me….

And run for a trowel.

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Flowers dug up…

Potted and moved to the relative safety of the big barn porch.

Of course by the time I’d turned around, he’d stolen bricks and edgers from my garden beds to raise the building.

Which made me….

And run to gather them up before I was left borderless.

One new section of wall in place, old section of roof replaced.

If you’re wondering how long this operation took?

An entire 4 day holiday weekend.

Yes, 4 friggin’ days!

Reason being, my husband is the least organized man on earth and had none of the materials he needed when he started this project and kept having to run to the store… a half an hour away. He can also never find any of his tools and spends 20 minutes cursing and kicking things over looking for them until he gives up and asks me.

Of course he also had to get a haircut, have breakfast with the boys, hit a yard sale, drive an hour to complain to the man who painted his truck last year because it’s already starting to chip, visit his brother, sharpen the lawn mower blades, stop at the pub for a beer and wash his car. Did he have to do all that while trying to rebuild the baby barn?

No. He did not.

But now you see why weekend projects take months.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon. We lay out and cut tar paper…

While a storm moves in.

Have you ever tried to lay tar paper on a roof in the wind and rain?

It’s not fun. Yours truly was on the other ladder and had to put her phone inside so there aren’t any pictures of me soaking wet and wind blown…. laying across the paper as it was ripping off the roof in a deluge.

Good times.

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At this rate, I think the project will be done by the time Elon Musk reaches Mars….

Or Richard Simmons stages a comeback.

Stay tuned.

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So…. this is happening.

September 14, 2019 Rivergirl 49 Comments

You may remember me posting pictures of our little red barn/shed.

We use it as a shed, but it was originally a small barn complete with horse. The horse is long gone…. and 40 odd years later?

The barn/shed is almost gone as well.

Falling apart?

You could say that…

Rotted wood?

The mere fact that it’s still standing never ceases to amaze me.

It’s horrible. An eye sore on our otherwise lovely property. The bane of my existence for a long, long time.

It’s state of disrepair is the main reason we spent $50,000 and 7 years of nights and weekends building a new and much larger barn.

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The plan? All the mowers and weed whackers, the snow blower, the tractor and assorted yard tools that were in the shed/barn were supposed to go into the new barn…. and the eyesore would be torn down.

But that never happened, and now the husband….. who has already filled the new barn ~~with CRAP~~ wants to rebuild the shed/barn to continue housing the mowers, tractor etc.

So this is happening.

Husband deemed part of the interior framing sound, and started what I thought was deconstruction of the back half…. which needs to be completely rebuilt..

Now my idea of deconstruction consists of ripping off the roof, then the walls. The husband’s?

I’m not quite sure.