Barnstorming

The existing barn is a bit of a blank canvas

I’ve always loved barns.  Whether they contain hay, livestock or equipment, they’re filled with possibility.  Back in middle school I spent endless study hall periods in the library, poring over Eric Sloan’s An Age of Barns just to look at the different regional forms, specialized outbuildings, and general whats-its of rural life (that and watching film loops of mating frogs and the San Francisco Earthquake.) So we were quite pleased to find a barn here at Willow Greens Farm.

Now don’t get too excited.  The barn is neither historic nor brand-spanking new; rather, it’s a mid 1980’s three-stall pole barn.  Its lines are not unsympathetic, but it doesn’t hold the charm of a nineteenth-century bank barn — most of those were burned to the ground during the Civil War.  Instead, this was designed to meet the needs of a small-scale horse enthusiast.

Which leads us to a defining question:  Will we have horses?  And by that I mean “Will I have horses?”  Laura can take or leave the beasts and my interest waned considerably after a very bad cross-country fall resulting in a long convalescence, hefty veterinary bills, and subsequent loss of nerve.  The only sane answer is “No.”

The second and broader question is “Do we transform the property to our whims, or do we renovate things with an eye toward resale?” (A three-stall barn and a five acre pasture is very attractive in this horse-crazy part of the world.  Keeping it intact would make sound financial sense.) Again, this was an easy question in light of the past couple of years.  Find the things that make you happy and start the journey.  For us, this means a workshop and a potting shed.

As a new coat of paint is the low-hanging fruit of most renovation projects, and given that the roof is sound and the boards are in good shape, that’s where we made a start.

It feels so much higher up than it looks

Socrates used to yammer on about his “Daimon” — that little voice warning him that what he was about to do was a mistake.  Well that sucker was going off at high volume as I mounted the ladder, paint brush in hand, for the 2-1/2 storey climb to the top of the barn*.  Luckily the dry, thirsty boards sucked up the thick fence paint and the job proceeded very quickly.  Within the week the facelift was complete and we were ready to get more surgical.

Our plan is to convert one stall into a potting shed looking out over several raised beds and a greenhouse.  While that will entail finding a professional with a digger and some expertise, the installation of a bank of windows in a barn seems within my limited grasp.  This is made a bit easier as it is a pole barn and I can remove some joists without endangering the integrity of the structure.  Our initial idea of repurposing some windows from Craigslist fell through as they all seemed to violate the first self-imposed rule of any project at Willow Greens Farm:

Rule #1 of Willow Greens Farm:  No chicken-shit solutions

What I mean is that if we can’t do it right, if it is some massive bodge that will haunt us for years to come, we find another answer, delay the project, or wait until we can afford a better way.  At the end of the day Amazon had two sets of black-framed windows designed for sheds and barns that fit the bill.  By setting up a number of guides I was able to cut very accurate openings in the east side of the barn, and with Laura’s help had them installed within a couple of weeks.  A bit of trim and a lick of paint, and I think we avoided running afoul of Rule #1.

When I look at the barn now I see all its possibilities come to life — a place to start seedlings, an area for my lathe, a loft for storage (and maybe even a fancy Barn Owl nesting complex), but nonetheless, it still sits in a grassy, boggy wasteland.  I’m sure it will be easy to find a competent, reasonable person to regrade the surrounding area and create a gravel workspace.  Hold on, what’s that little voice I hear?

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* If you watch BBC’s This Farming Life (and you should), you may remember Graham, a very nice and humorous man of about my age who was painting the side of his Scottish Croft, climbed a ladder to this height, took a tumble and is still trying to regain his strength and motor control.  Throughout the season the half-painted wall loomed ominously as a grim reminder of how quickly things can go wrong.