Nearly There!

In the days following my last post, Dave really began hauling ass on completing the barn. In the span of two days, I suddenly had completed doors for each stall door (inside and outside), completed main doors on either end of the aisle, completed walls in every stall, completed exterior everywhere except under the eave on the front, and one nearly-complete wall in the tack/feed room. In addition, I got stall mats placed in each stall and put one in the aisle where my cross ties are so I have a nice clean place to trim hooves!

Almost complete shingling under the eave at the back. The hole will be an exterior light...though Dave is calling it a "starling entrance" right now because he knows how much I detest starlings.

Pano of the back of the barn. Shingling not complete and still waiting on the other door + light installation.
The mess in the photo is now picked up and I can't believe how much it makes me twitch to look at it in the image now lol

Walls going up in the back stall (Griffin's)

Stan in his mostly-complete stall with a partially complete sliding door
Q looking in from under the overhang

A hot freaking mess

All of the mess to the back of the barn and on the right of the photo is GONE as of this past weekend *celebrate*

Lit the F up!

Seriously. It's so freaking bright in there. That's only from THREE lights.

I was teleworking last week and looked out to see Stan taking a nap. First time I've witnessed since moving them home.
And yes, that temp tape is loose because Dave was working and he always moves it around which results in it being loose.
I'm fortunate to have the worlds most respectable horses when it comes to this fence though. They happily much hay and don't fuck with it at all while it's loose (or any other time).

Zzzzzz

Saddles will go on this wall! Eeee! 

Cleaned up (mostly)! Completed doors! Completed walls! Stall mats!
Stall assignments are, from left to right, Stan, Q, Grif.
And yes, it's really fucking gorgeous with all of that mosaicked wood.

Front doors. (No chevrons because Dave has reached a IDGAF stage with things 😂)

The other front door.

Stan's stall...still waiting on one board int his photo lol

Grif's stall (and temp feed room), also waiting on a board.

Grif's door

Okay, so, for the curious wood enthusiasts:
The darkest boards are 100+ year old red spruce timbered locally that used to be a schoolhouse in a neighboring town.
The pinkish boards are black cherry timbered/milled as a part of this project.
The light boards with some black blemishes (second form bottom and on top on right) are sugar maple timbered/milled as a part of this project.
The bright white-ish boards are pine timbered/milled locally.
The grey-ish hued boards (bottom and door frame) are white oak, timbered/milled in an adjacent county. (The exterior of the barn is also white oak.)

Exterior stall door bottoms installed!

Bottom and top. The only "unfancy" wood on the whole thing lol! See note above about Dave reaching the IDGAF stage. 

I installed latches last night that temp tape is (finally!) not stretched across here.

The chevron back doors. I kinda love them.

The aisle, much more clean than in past photos! But still a mess because it's still under construction.

The first hook for organizational purposes has been installed! 

Okay, so we have some of the best neighbors ever.
Their granddaughter used some of the wood scraps we had to make us a wood burned sign with our house number.
It, of course, has a husky and a horse on it! The silhouette behind is of Seneca Rocks, a pretty unique climbing destination 25 min from our house and a place Dave and I took many first dates.

Straight out of camera. My little paradise!

Proof that the mess was (somewhat) cleaned up lol! Scraps sorted into piles along the barn (will be firewood/kindling).
Scaffolding in front to facilitate the shingles going up (they're actually mostly done as of yesterday but I haven't uploaded the photos so you get to wait for a final reveal).

It's been really nice to begin to use the barn and not do-si-do with all of the construction! In fact, I spent much of my weekend re-organizing what remains of the construction zone to clean things up around the barnyard and neaten the remaining materials (visible in the last photo). It feels really good to see things buttoned up.

As of last evening, I installed the latches on the stall doors and re-did the temp tape. It is SO NICE to just walk through the stall doors and NOT duck under temp tape now. OMG. It's also nice to be able to allow the horses to hang their heads into the barn.

The rest of the dry wall for the tack room arrived yesterday, so that will go up today/tomorrow. With luck, I may be painting in there some this weekend! I can only hope.

I am SO eager to get all of my shit into that tack/feed room and get it organized. It's the last big piece for me (besides the fence but we're just not talking about the fence right now) to feel settled with this project. As grateful as I am to have had the horses home these past many weeks, it's been hard having my things scattered about between the trailer, the barn, the basement, the garage, and the house.

I've been in a bit of a transitory phase with my tack for the past 15 months or so. When I brought the horses to Canaan last summer, I did my best to modify my trailer into an all-encompassing tack/feed room. It was tight, but it served the purposes I needed. When I moved back to our boarding barn for the winter, I kept everything in the trailer because I just couldn't handle the thought of reorganizing it all into that tack/feed room again. It's worked, but I am seriously OVER living out of my trailer/having shit scattered to the four winds. Getting my tack room completed and organized in the next two weeks is something I am SO excited about. It won't come together in organizational perfection overnight, but simply getting everything into one room will be HUGE.

With any luck, my next barn post will wrap things up! As eager as I am for this project to be done, I'll be sad to bring this series of posts to an end. While inordinately stressful, it's been a very fun project and I've very much enjoyed bringing y'all along for the process.

So stay tuned a little longer, and we'll see about bringing this all to a close.