ME, ME, ME! I GOT A BARN, I GOT A BARN!!

If you're looking for Rednesday, please scroll down to the next post!


I'm so excited that I found the Barn Chick Party today! Dogs Mom Learning to Blog featured her barn post on Rednesday so I followed the link and, well, I got a barn - so, here goes!

We moved onto our property almost 20 years ago. The house was a roughly 200-year-old farmhouse with low ceilings, wide plank floors, back-to-back fireplaces with the swing arm for hanging pots, and rumor has it that runaway slaves were hid here (haven't confirmed it yet).

On the downside, there was no insulation so we heated with a wood stove (loved it!); we discovered termites eating through a part of the kitchen floor; and every February/March the big black ants that were nesting in our dining room wall would come out (I still shudder!). Oh, and I can't forget the mice poop we kept finding under the kitchen sink, and the milk snake that lived in the basement, and the squirrels (or mice) that would run between the walls while we were sleeping!

It was a love/hate relationship with that house - of which I had no say in the matter of buying . My father-in-law wanted the 20 acres that went with the house for development. We ended up with 1-1/2 acres. Anyways, to make a long story even longer, this house burned down about 8 years ago from a stove ember smouldering all day in the living room while we were out. So, we rebuilt a pre-fab/modular Cape style in its' place. And we're living happily every after!

Thank goodness the barn was untouched by fire! Mister has been working on the barn these past few months, so we'll start with a photo from a few years ago when he was cleaning out the interior.

Here it is this summer just after he replaced the first floor windows. They're cool - the side windows open outward while the center one is stationary.

The upstairs windows being worked on - with Smokey in for a pose!

And here's the front, today, pretty much finished! Doesn't it look so "New England-ish"? *sigh* - my poor garden in front of it - will need some major work in the Spring.

I walked down in the wet "field" to snap a shot of the back side - that needs a lot of work, too!

Let's go inside - I haven't been inside for years, haven't had a need to. If I need Mister while he's in there, I just yell from the house porch, or go stand in the doorway. Here's the entrance, which you can see to the right in the first photo. He's so proud of this door, but I'm not particularly fond of it.

Okay, what do have here . . . this is what we see when looking straight through the doors - like his "Don't Tread On Me" sign?

To the right is tools, tools, and more tools. Mister loves tools, nuts, bolts, screws, etc.! There's another whole wall of them behind these shelves!

Enough tools. Let's go up the new stairs, to the right of the entrance, past the pot-bellied stove. Sorry that we had to climb over stuff to access the stairs!

Whoa! Would ya look at this old trunk at the top of the stairs - awesome! And those latches - cool! I think I see a coffee table in the makings!

Now, doesn't this look like a typical barn to you? Love that chair! Oh, and say hi to Moses, on top of the barrel!

And right above this "vignette"~ have you ever seen such a beautiful roof/ceiling? They just don't make 'em like this anymore!

Cool red table, but I've already got one in my kitchen. Bed springs? I have no idea what that's about, but it looks so rustic.

Drums? Boxing gloves? I'll have to go on an expedition someday to get a close-up of what's in that hutch!

Okay, let's go back downstairs - watch your step at the bottom.

I'm so glad I got to share Mister's barn with you! I hope you had as much fun as I did poking around! And it's good that I found a few items to claim for the house, too!

Karen, thank you so much for hosting this "barn dance" of a party - I got so excited about it, taking pictures and talking, that I actually postponed home school until tomorrow (the holiday)!

Now, everyone, if you're not too tired, go back to the first paragraph and follow the link to visit the other Barn Chicks!