The Barn, Take Two

If you've checked in anytime between December and now, you would have seen the only post I attempted and why I didn't attempt any others. Our internet is a bit dodgy out here, and both J and I had pretty old computers. Together, those two equal mediocre internet connection at best. The last post I tried was only successful enough for me to get out the words, "f internet!" before the connection was lost again. And then a few days later my computer simply stopped turning on, and so all the interesting things happening up here on the farm have stayed up here on the farm. But now I have a new computer and upgraded the internet, so I actually get three whole bars!

First line of business: our barn is 95% done on the inside. We still have to carpet the upstairs, align the kitchen cabinets, seal the bathroom counter, fill in the drywall around the electrical sockets, paint the bathroom, lay the tile around the bedroom fireplace, hook up the wood burning stove, put a few more lights in, scrape all the residual paint off the upstairs glass doors, treat the stairs, touch up paint everywhere, hang curtains and blinds in the west facing windows, repaint our downstairs concrete floor, finish unpacking our office, hang our mirrors and pictures, change out our bathroom faucet, get a large outdoor mat for our sliding door, a new fridge because ours doesn't close all the way anymore, and a railing of some kind for the staircase so we don't bite it in the middle of the night and knock all our teeth out. Whoa. That's the first time I've actually made that list. OK, so 87% done.

But besides that tiny list, we are done. And we love it. I'm posting the befores and afters so you can see where we began. We still can't believe it looks exactly how we wanted it to given our meager budget, but when you get creative, which we did on many counts, it's amazing what you can pull off. Perhaps one day I will even share some of our secrets...