Nothing can boost your self-esteem more than feeling like you look good. You put on clothes that you really love, your hair falls into place just right and the next thing you know you're walking with your head held a little higher and you've got a spring in your step. It's pretty much the same for barns...I guess.
Our Ugly Duckling story starts out with our subject looking quite rustic and not very weather-resistant.
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| The barn siding was just old wood that I would have loved to have reclaimed. |
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| Now THAT'S rustic!!! |
I must admit that the look of the barn, with the old wood and its gaps gave it a certain charm, but charm won't keep the wind and rain out. Even one of the technicians for the local phone/cable company saw the barn and asked me to keep it just the way it is (was). Of course, he doesn't have to store tools and work in there.
So the makeover began by just adding some pre-primed siding. I'd already put up one sheet before the electricity was run into the barn. I would have liked to have reclaimed the old wood for something, but... The barn was not built to current building standards where your studs are spaced at 16" centers (or even 24"). Some were 19, some were 26, so I need the old wood to have something to screw my siding to when there was no stud or structure to hold it.
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Greenhouse side (facing house) is done.
Sheet #1 goes on the font. |
The front of the barn was covered with asphalt shingles to keep the rain/wind from coming through the gaps. Neta had scraped off the right side a few months back and I did the left side recently. Once we had that out of the way, it was time to move to the front.
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Sheet #2 and the door cutout.
You can also see the door frame is now back to its original height and is taller than the old doors. |
We also needed to build new doors. The original door frame (before the more recent doors) was much taller, so they'd nailed in a piece of framing to match the shorter doors. I removed that and went back to the taller (7 1/2 feet) frame and built new doors to match.
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| Door #1 and the third sheet of siding (before door cut-out). |
The doors are just simple 2x4 framed doors, but to add a degree of difficulty, I tried to make sure that the grooves of the siding on the doors matched up to the siding that was on the barn.
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| I got the doors lined up pretty close with the rest of the siding. |
With both doors built and hung, I added some trim pieces (Neta gets credit for priming them) along the hinge side. There will be more trim to come to complete the look.
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| The top and bottom trim pieces added, along with the 4th sheet of siding. |
With the bottom of the barn front and the doors done, it was time to tackle the top angles. I have to admit, I'm pretty proud of the cuts I made on the top angles. I measured the width of where the pieces would go and the height at each side, then put my marks on the siding, drew a line between them and cut it freehand with the circular saw.
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| First half done! |
I don't want to brag, but if my father could have seen me draw the lines he might have shaken his head at my crude measuring and line drawing. But if he saw those cuts I made without the help of a square or a guide it would have brought tears to his eyes.
Sidenote: I'd recently bought a new saw blade for cutting the plastic panels for the greenhouse. I'd tried to use it on some plywood I had and couldn't cut a straight line to save my life. It looked like I was drunk when I cut the plywood. I replaced that blade with my old one for this siding. My lines were almost laser-like. But enough bragging...
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| All siding is complete. |
I'm still going to add some trim to the left corner and maybe along the edge of the angled pieces up next to the roof. The right corner will have to wait as we've got to clean out that side of the barn of firewood and other items before we put siding on that side and around back.
We also plan to paint the barn a typical "barn red" color. Not sure when that will be, but with the siding pre-primed we've got plenty of time.
So our "ugly duckling" maybe hasn't become a "swan" (yet), but it certainly is quite the transformation. I'm sure it's self-esteem is much higher. And it's still rustic on the inside and will stay that way...though quite a bit cleaner than before.
