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My still bored by retirement husband was back in the underground den of detritus yesterday stacking crap on his newly constructed shelves.
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It shouldn’t surprise you to learn they didn’t take long to fill.
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We now have slightly more organized floor to ceiling crap. Among the treasure?
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Mildew covered high tech.
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An ancient rusted fire extinguisher.
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And a box of money… which if I had known was down there, I would have cashed in years ago..
🤣
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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 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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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.
River's world..... 