I’m writing this on Thursday morning.

I’m a couple of weeks behind schedule but the crew has finally begun work in the barn. The first step is to gut the old “milk room” and turn it into a painting studio, I can touch the present ceiling and the room is almost claustrophobic. We will be removing that and the superstructure above it, adding post and beam to hold up the roof and then rewiring the room.

Whoops!!; My first surprise came after the ceiling was ripped out. Carpenter ants had done an extensive job on the roof rafters during the past 100 years. The exterminator will be here on Saturday and a new roof is going on next week. Then we can continue. What started out as a fairly simple job has now turned into a rebuild from the concrete block up.

Frankly I’m not too surprised although this was not a part of the plan. I’ve done enough renovations in old buildings to know that every time you open a wall you are going to get a surprise.

Since the barn is currently unheated… (The cows use to take care of that in the winter).. I am going to insulate and tighten up this area as a starting point. Next season I will tackle another part of the barn and expand my work area into a sculpture studio. I may never need the entire barn as it is 4000 sq ft. But I will never complain about lack of space. It’s a fantastic piece of history.

As far as the painting studio, from now on it should go smoothly and in the end it will be a place where I will enjoy spending my time.