Another Project Complete

When Dan dismantled the loft in the barn I salvaged one piece of wood to make a shelf for the rec room upstairs in the barn.

 

The board is 15 feet long and had been part of the flooring of that loft.

Saw marks were evident from a sash type saw mill.

The bark on the edge was not removed.

The above three photos are from when I laid it on the bench on the deck to sand it. I should have washed the board first before the first two grits of sand paper.  Dan did then help me scrub it and even after sanding there was lots of dirt to be removed. Once dried I sanded it some more with several finer grits before Dan took it to the basement where I set up drop clothes to polyurethane the board.

I did three coats on the top and two on the underneath.

Below shows its final spot in the rec room.

The bark edge really gives it a neat effect I think.

I have a box of artifacts to be washed and placed on there for viewing along with the ping pong balls and paddles.

Next big project will be painting the rec room.  Granddaughter #2 and I were up there this morning and talked about painting it with green hills, cows, blue sky, clouds, a rainbow and flowers.  It should be fun.  But before any of that goes up all those walls need a washing and primer coat on the wallboard. Stay tuned!

Do You Know What This Is?

 

See that wooden contraption above to the left of the window?

Below its in the rec room loft.

I looked up sledge on the internet and found this.

They called it a snow shovel - 19th century style.

We really don't know what to do with it.

Any suggestions?

The Barn - Part 2

 

Our plan for the barn is for the first bay to be a garage.  It will keep its barn character with a side rolling door like it has now.  We have a contractor who will stabilize the barn and pour a concrete flooring for the two right bays and grade our entire driveway.

To speed the project up Dan took on the task of removing the loft above and the flooring in these two bays.

I didn't take any photos of him in the loft, prying up the boards and sliding them down.  You'll have to use your imagination about how he balanced once he got to the last boards.  Here they are spilling out of the barn.

Then he went to work removing the joists which held the boards up there.

These sizable beams got stacked on the floor.

 

Can you see the dust?  I had to wash his clothes every night.  They were filthy.

Looking up you can see the small plywood door used to access this upper loft.  On the other side of that is the finished loft.

On another day he started with the flooring which was in two layers.

Under the bottom layer was a midden or refuse heap.  Dumping grounds from before this barn was built.

I went to work pulling things out.

Eventually all the wood went into this pile.  I salvaged one very long piece for a shelf in the rec room loft. Emily and I took some other pieces to make wooden quilts.

Here is some of the salvage.  I did some research on the marks on the backs of the plate fragments and the bottle and the items date from 1890-1910.  We figure that's about when the barn was built.

So this is how it looked on Monday, March 29th.  Now all that is gone.  A neighbor took the wood under the tarp and will build a small barn is his backyard.  He used his Volvo station wagon to haul the loads.  Some of the wood was 18 feet long and was a sight to see hanging out of his car.  He had only three houses to go to unload. The doors, windows and shutters have also gone to new owners.

Work should start in the next few weeks on the conversion to garage space.

The Barn Part 1

 Our barn.  Isn't it lovely?

Entering on the right side 

you're in the first bay.  Against the back wall what looks like a blackboard is the sign we found.

A second bay was filled with interesting things too like this wash tub.  But notice the ceiling.

The ceiling in these first two bays is the floor of the loft above.  Look how the joists have bark on them.

This door then leads to the next two bays, one of which was finished with drywall and had a propane heater.  That went to junk.  No one wanted it.

That bay also has the steps to the finished loft space,

The last bay has the garden stuff.

By the looks of the floor it may have been an animal stall at some point.

Up the stairs is the finished loft with this small door to access the other loft.

Dan hung the sign here.  This will be our rec room.  A ping pong table arrived on Monday. We will have a solid railing built around the stairwell.

Through the small door to the other loft is where all the shutters were.  Dan had to climb the ladder there to get them down.

Old doors, windows and wood.  I found a chair here that I cleaned up and use.  This is where the 1906 newspaper was found.  We think these things had been stored here for at least 100 years or more.

Notice the floor - two layers.

Dan moved everything out of this loft.

Part 2 coming next.

And there's more

 AC was right when he called the picture I posted yesterday a paint by number.  We took it down and it sure enough is a painting.

There are these two finds also - flags.  Not particularly old.  The US flag has 50 stars. The other flag is a New England flag adopted in 1988.  It's sold on Amazon here.

Here they are dirty hanging over a shelf in the barn.  We found them last month when Dan turned the sign around.  They had fallen or been stuffed behind the cream separator sign.  

I washed them both.

Like the sign we will find a place to hang these in the loft recreation room in the barn.

Other finds

Sharing some other finds from the barn but first - pussy willows.

Daughter Emily gave me a sprig from her tree with the instructions to put it in water.  The first photo is from Tuesday when she gave it to me and the second from this morning.  

As to the finds - there is this tiny medal attached to the door jamb of the barn entrance.

 

Reading counter clockwise from 9 to 3 o'clock it says "The Olympic Courier from".  The bottom reads "Telemark Norway".   My search on the web found nothing.  I think the date in the bottom right corner says 1986 but the last digit is questionable.  The medal is no more that 2"x1".  I don't know how it's fastened on there.

The former owner's ex husband had a ski shop of sorts in part of the barn.  This door inside the barn is plastered with stickers. The marriage lasted all of 4 years so the business was not long lasting either.

And last there's this in a corner above a shelf with watering cans.  Haven't been able to reach it to see if it's a picture or a painting.  Need to check it out more closely.

We had someone here yesterday that knew the former owner and we hope can work to renovate the barn for us.  Initially he thought we were going to ask him to take it down and he would have done that because there's a market for old barns.  We want to renovate part to use as a garage.

More finds yet to come!