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After what seems like forever, we have finally made some noticeable progress on the barn. Noticebale in that the one thing everyone notices is that we haven't had our siding up yet. Friends and family kept asking "When is that siding going up?" What they were unable to realize is that we had a number of other projects we felt the need to get done before snow began to fall and pile up.
Our rough cut pine boards arrived on site in early spring. They were milled by our favorite local mill and delivered to the site. Paul and Joe stayed and helped us sticker and stack the siding. The boards were freshly cut and milled so we had to give them time to dry. Unfortunately we experienced an extremely wet spring and summer, so it took much longer than we would have hoped. Once the boards were below the correct percent moisture (I believe that magic number was below 13%) we began the staining. The staining was accomplished using a paint sprayer. For this first coat the sprayer was fine. Coverage is lacking and we had planned on needing a second coat once the boards are all installed. Using the sprayer used less paint than if we had used brushes or rollers to coat the boards, thus in the end saving us a bit of money on this step.
Well, during the fall we spent our nights and weekends spraying the siding with the stain. Then hanging it to dry. We also managed to install the stairs to the second floor. This is fantastic. No more climbing the ladder to get to the hay storage!
In November we completed some much needed structural work to the roof. Seems that last years snow, one of the largest snow fall amounts we had experienced up here, indicated we may have underengineered our roof beams. In just a couple days worth of work during the month of November, Steve and I installed new LVL beams and strengthened the roofline. We are ready for the snow this year! Having completed those tasks (among many others that are not significant enough to mention) we had finally come to a point where we can get that siding up.
After a few days of prep work we can finally say the siding has begun. The girls were thrilled to get to into the barn and find at least one wall was nearly complete. It is funny how they react to new spaces. The first thing the alpacas wanted to do when we let them in was to begin a dust bath party. It seems that when one goes - they all go.
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