speaking of barns....

..notice anything different about mine?

My header picture was taken a couple of years ago, and here's my barn now:



(Please ignore the piles of manure... they have since been "relocated"  to the manure pile out behind the barn!)

Here's a little closer shot... now can you see what's different?



How about a little more barn art?



The vintage tin Coke sign came from my SIL...




... and the vintage Coors beer sign came from our neighbors.



It hung on the side of their barn for years... and I could see it from our house and always liked it. When those neighbors moved, knowing how much I liked that old tin sign, they pulled it off their barn and gave it to me. It's been hung up inside my barn for years... but there wasn't room for the Coke sign inside the barn too, so I hung them both up outside.





My old barn is stylin' now!




Happy first day of fall!!

coop quilt... finished!

I finished my little barn coop quilt over the weekend, and I think it's my favorite barn art so far...



I've always loved that barn red paint (the name of the paint is "barn" and it's a Sherwin Williams color) and especially love how it looks paired with white.



It ended up taking three coats of white to cover, so I spent a fair amount of time sitting out by the coop painting... (and almost as long touching up the red!)



It was worth it though... I love looking out the back window and seeing the happy little coop sitting out there...



I'm almost done fixing it up... I put trim pieces around the opening from the coop into the run, and yesterday had some fun building a little roof over it out of some scrap piece of wood and galvanized metal I had laying around.



Yes, it's totally unnecessary... it was a just-for-fun little project.



I still need to add a door into the coop (right now it's just some wire on a frame held up with carabiners), I'll probably work on that today. I found some wood for it yesterday (Thank you E!) and cut it to size, today I'll finish painting it and hopefully get it hung.



Look... even the hens are enjoying their little bit of barn art!

*~*daybook*~*

FOR TODAY

Outside my window... the sun isn't up yet... early mornings this week because Joe has had to be at work early (and I'm the backup alarm!).

I am thankful... for so many things... right now, especially, for my children and grandchildren's health.

In the kitchen... M's gut is doing well enough that I've been able to have a bit more freedom in terms of cooking. For the past few weeks every evening has been a dilemma of what can I make for dinner that he might be able to eat? He's enough better now that I have a little more leeway in what I serve...

I am creating... a bit of barn art, and a little mando music when I get the chance.

I am reading... Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance. I picked up a few books on chicken keeping the last time I was at the library... most were pretty dry, but this has been a fun read. 

I am hoping... M's gut continues to work well enough to get by. He hasn't been sick for several days which has been wonderful!

I am looking forward to... seeing S later this morning. Her foster mom is bringing her for an overnight visit. This is the first time I've seen her since she moved into her new foster home, and I miss her.

Around the house... I'm already making plans for fall/winter projects. I'm looking forward to fall and having more time for inside work.

In the garden... pumpkins are growing like crazy and the onions and carrots are doing great, the peppers are producing but not well and the tomatoes just aren't happy at all. I think I'm going to move them into the big garden (from the little kitchen garden) next year and see if they're happier. 

One of my favorite things... Irish dancing (my older girls danced for 10 years). I found this video taken at the wedding reception for two dancers from the "Lord of the Dance" show. It's awesome... and brings back so many memories. Enjoy...

A peek into my day...

a couple of chick pics...

This is M's hen... Sara Kane


Hazel and Lilly:
"Do you have any treats for us?"

______________________________

Visit Peggy's blog for more about The Simple Woman's Daybook

a miniature barn quilt

If you've been reading my blog for long, you know I love barn art...

I added a little personality to my barn back in 2011:



And last year I painted a barn quilt on our shed:



So, of course, there was no way I wasn't going to add a little art to the chicken coop.

That almost square little door was like a blank canvas... calling to me that it needed a tiny barn quilt.



So, I'm giving it what it needs.

I found a nice design last week... (a full sized barn quilt that's for sale... wouldn't it look nice on your barn?)




And yesterday I started by measuring the door, getting the math figured out, and making a quick half-size pattern to follow.






I love the symmetry and order in quilt blocks, and this turned out to be an especially easy pattern to draw. I basically just marked out an 8x8 grid (each section 2.5") on the door and added the few angled lines and it was done.



The only complicating factor was the 2.5" piece of extra wood on the hinge side of the door (probably there to give the door a little extra strength), but it ended up being almost exactly 2.5" wide, so it wasn't hard to incorporate into the pattern.

Since it's such a small area, I decided to try taping the sections off (usually I just paint freehand)... but that ended up being a bad idea. I did get some nice straight lines but the tape messed up some of the original red paint, so I have a little more touch up on the red than I was anticipating.



So I'm free handing the rest, and the spaces are small but not too bad.  I am having to use an artist's brush for the whole thing, it's just too small for a regular paintbrush!

It works best for me to outline the space first, then fill in the middle. You can see my lines aren't perfectly straight... but that's ok... barn art is meant to be enjoyed from a distance, and none of the little wiggly spots in the lines show up from even a foot or two away.



I got about 3/4 of the first coat done yesterday, I'll go back out today and finish up the white (2-3 coats) and touch up the red tomorrow and it will be done.



A sweet little barn quilt for a sweet little coop.

I'll post some pictures when it's done...

Thrifting Thursday (vintage fisher-price)

Finally!

I've been looking for a vintage Fisher Price little people dollhouse for awhile now and I finally found one at Goodwill... for $3.99.



I've had the vintage little people barn and some of the animals for awhile now...



They came into the thrift store M works at and I snapped them up immediately. I think the barn kind of looks like ours...






Complete with barn art and bird's nests!






But I couldn't find a house to go with it.

Until now...



Of course, this is the second time I've purchased both these items... Our "big kids" had the house, barn, garage, and village little people sets (also purchased from thrift stores) back when they were tiny. As they outgrew them, and I wanted the space all those toys took up for other things, I got rid of them. (a definite lack of foresight)

I always liked those old little people sets though... I love the cool little furniture, and various expressions on the people's faces, and the neat way everything fit together to store away.



My "new" house could use a little more furniture (I'll keep watching thrift stores) but otherwise I'm set... I have no desire to collect them... I'm happy with just the house and the barn.

Despite the fact that my "babies" are now 21 and 17, the house just looks more like a home with a few toys here and there....

Annie's Story (our house's original owners)

I just got done reading Sherry's post on Young House Love about the history and original owners of their house. I've LOVED researching the history of our homes, and Sherry's post got me thinking I should also write about what we know of our current home's history.

(Our house, circa 1980)


And a similar view today...




First I should probably back up a bit... When we bought our home the seller didn't disclose any major defects, and it passed the home inspection... so, needless to say, we were shocked to discover (shortly after closing) that the house had major problems... It's a log home and the logs hadn't been maintained (by the previous, not original owner) and there was wood rot, bug infestation, and places where we could see light between the logs. (The inspector apparently knew nothing about log homes and just gave the exterior of the house a very quick look!) Anyway, a fair amount of panic ensued when the first estimate to fix the house came back at more than 25% of what we'd just paid for the entire house... and there was anger too.  Anger at the seller, and the inept inspector, of course... but I was also angry at the house. It made no sense, but I somehow blamed it (for not being taken care of?!) for all it's problems.

It was in the midst of all the drama and trauma of discovering the house we'd sunk every penny into was in danger of falling down, that I tracked down Annie. I guess I needed to know the history of the house to try to make my peace with what felt like a dream home turned nightmare money pit...

Annie, with her husband, built our house... their house... starting back in the mid-1970's. She was an art teacher, he was a lumber jack... She eventually told me a dozen stories about the building of this house.... about how they'd harvested the logs for the house up in the mountains and had them milled before hauling them down here to build. The logs are all lodgepole pine, and some of them have a bluish tinge to them because they are beetle-kill wood. (The beetles stain the wood...)





The living room fireplace was built from huge stones they gathered in Coal Creek Canyon and hauled down with the help of friends...




The bedroom fireplace is made from petrified wood they found when they dug the foundation.



It was a long time before they were ready to build this fireplace, so they "stored" the petrified wood under a big scrub oak in the front pasture until they needed it.



It took them two full years to build the house... When they first started building they drove out each weekend to work, during the latter part of the building they lived in a little camper parked in what would later become the garage.

The logs are held together with huge spikes and have both insulation and chinking in between each course.



Annie had one very close call during the building... She said she had been working pounding together a course of logs on the north side, towards the top of the second story. As she worked her way along, straddling the top of the logs, holding on with her legs and pounding in stakes with a sledgehammer, she worked her way to where the guest bathroom is... and not realizing that her husband had cut out the logs for that window since the last time she'd worked, she scootched forward expecting solid logs between her knees to hold onto and found the open space of the window instead. She lost her balance and slipped upside down (legs still holding on, feet locked together), around the top course of logs where she held on as tightly as she could and started yelling for help... Thankfully her husband was close and was able to get to her before she fell.

(Annie was sitting on top of the upper window on the left when she almost fell...)



After she told me that story I asked what she did after she was pulled back to safety... She said she got back up on top of the logs and kept working.

Our loft was designed to be her art studio (it has water piped into it, but has never had a sink installed) and the big wall in the family room  was designed to be a "gallery wall" of her artwork.

(The house in about 1980, Annie's gallery wall on the left...)




The family room now from about the same angle (notice the same doorbell, painted now, over the stairs...).



We have their original blueprints and cherish them. It's a quirky house, but not a haphazard one...

It is definitely one of a kind.



Annie bred and raised Arabian horses and was so happy to know that the barn is being used as a barn again. (It had been used as RV storage for years before we bought the house.)

See the little camper in the background? That's what they lived in while they finished building the house... (the photo dates from the early 1980's)



Sadly, Annie's husband began losing his sight about 5 years after the house was finished. By the time the house was 7 years old he was almost blind and unable to maintain the house any longer and they sold it.  He passed away a few years later...

(Annie's husband ans son shortly after the house was finished...)




After I tracked Annie down and we had a chance to talk about this funny old house, I found it easy to forgive the house (for being such a wreck) and became 110% committed to bringing it back to what it should have been.

(2005 - During the exterior repair stage... log damage repaired, chimneys rebuilt, stucco... to the protect logs... going on.)


When the house was built, Annie and her husband had intended it to have stone chimneys... but the budget just wouldn't allow stone, so they finished them in wood. When we repaired the outside of the house, I used Annie's blueprints as a guide and had the chimneys rebuilt in stone.



Since we couldn't preserve the log exterior (leave it exposed) we trimmed out the house in lodge pole pine timbers as a way of connecting the "old" log home, with the "new" stucco covered one.




The first time Annie came to dinner, she walked into the house and tears immediately came to her eyes. As she wiped the tears away she said, "There's a lot of love built into this house..."  She even asked if, on another visit, she could sprinkle some of her husband's ashes out in our gully...



I wasn't sure what to say (it was an unexpected request to say the least!) but I said yes... and later that same summer she came back and walked our gully, sprinkling ashes and just being alone there. She later told me that gully was so important to her (to them) because, before this land was even available for purchase (when it was still railroad land) she and her husband had been part of a trail riding club and had frequently ridden their horses across this land... timing their lunch stop so they could picnic in a pretty little gully along the way.

That pretty little gully ended up part of the land they (and we) eventually purchased...




So... that's the story of our house. Sorry it got so long, but it seemed important to get it written down...

Anybody else have a house story to share?