As I was beginning to plan where to put all my shelves in the art studio, I realized I didn’t have enough wall space. I decided to build a wall between the two halves of the studio to give me room for all my hanging shelves. I didn’t like how closed off it felt, however, so I cut a large opening in the wall at eye level to open up the space.
Since that leaves me only half a wall when I needed a whole wall, I’m also putting half a wall between the breeze through and the far section of studio. That will allow me to mount all my shelves and still have a view of the entire studio as well as the horse corral and yard.
I thought I would be done with my studio before Thanksgiving but, as I should have known, projects always take 2 to 4 times longer than expected.
I’m so excited I can now move on to the pop out windows which will be in the open triangle spaces below the upper roof. After that I will put in the large triangle windows for the loft area on all four sides of the building.
Working on construction in my life reminds me of sewing a dress one seam each day. The process takes a long time but eventually I end up with a finished product.
This sort of reminds me of the baby steps I take in my life. Moving slowly through life’s lessons I sometimes wonder if I’m making any progress… But looking back on everything I accomplished I realize how much I’ve learned. Realizing that life is a series of baby steps helps me feel happier and more content with the process.
I borrowed a friends tractor and had a great time grading our back half acre.
We smoothed out the pasture area and created a nice slope in the new barn area where we will be building this summer. Also, spent some time smoothing out the old garden to extend our grassy back lawn.
The new barn area will have a solid run of packed gravel base and pea gravel on top to keep the horses feet out of the mud this winter. We will also have a hay barn included so that we won’t have to drag the hay on dollys through the rain to the barn!
We are building 12 small structures to make our new barn. Each structure is under 200 ft.² and can stand alone.
I drew so many plans before I finally settled on one. The planning is so fun.
Would I have been out here in the snow if it weren’t for Cheryl? . . . no. Ha ha!
Cheryl often says, “I can do it, I’m a Viking!” Not wanting her out there trying to lift those rafters on her own, which would have been difficult to say the least, I went out and helped her. After all, I’m a Viking too, right? I wonder if we do that DNA test, who would be most Viking? 😉
I found working in the snow wasn’t that bad. Of course, I had on the big fluffy down jacket my dad gave me a few years back when I still lived in Florida. Glad I have it now! Also, under my long skirt I had on stretch pants. Then there are the Ugg type boots I was wearing, a great thrift store find . . . and a scarf to keep my ears warm. Yeah, we’re tough. We’re Vikings. We’re well insulated Vikings!
We worked to get the outline of her rooftop done and tarped, so her “tiny house” aka her studio, could be covered from the rain and snow until she can work on it after this new semester.
We worked and worked, then had to go in to rest and get warm. Then back to work. We paced ourselves because we just don’t have that much stamina! We did not get the tiny house along as far as we had hoped, but we are close to the goal.
Today (Sunday) was to be her last day to work on it before school starts for her. She had been working through her winter break on the structure, even when sick, and today she was really under the weather so we decided to rest. I was glad we were resting because I was exhausted and I’m not even sick!
Here are some more photos of our working yesterday.
Before we started the roof bones.Cheryl attaching things while I hold rafter steady (out of picture).MMMmmm HHhmmm . . . Looking good!Working up high.Yipee! Done for the day. Getting dark.View out the double doors on south west side.
I do love building projects, especially ones like this which will be so beautiful when finished! I wouldn’t choose to work in this weather, however, Viking or no.
Would I have been out here in the snow if it weren’t for Cheryl? . . . no. Ha ha!
Cheryl often says, “I can do it, I’m a Viking!” Not wanting her out there trying to lift those rafters on her own, which would have been difficult to say the least, I went out and helped her. After all, I’m a Viking too, right? I wonder if we do that DNA test, who would be most Viking? 😉
I found working in the snow wasn’t that bad. Of course, I had on the big fluffy down jacket my dad gave me a few years back when I still lived in Florida. Glad I have it now! Also, under my long skirt I had on stretch pants. Then there are the Ugg type boots I was wearing, a great thrift store find . . . and a scarf to keep my ears warm. Yeah, we’re tough. We’re Vikings. We’re well insulated Vikings!
We worked to get the outline of her rooftop done and tarped, so her “tiny house” aka her studio, could be covered from the rain and snow until she can work on it after this new semester.
We worked and worked, then had to go in to rest and get warm. Then back to work. We paced ourselves because we just don’t have that much stamina! We did not get the tiny house along as far as we had hoped, but we are close to the goal.
Today (Sunday) was to be her last day to work on it before school starts for her. She had been working through her winter break on the structure, even when sick, and today she was really under the weather so we decided to rest. I was glad we were resting because I was exhausted and I’m not even sick!
Here are some more photos of our working yesterday.
Before we started the roof bones.Cheryl attaching things while I hold rafter steady (out of picture).MMMmmm HHhmmm . . . Looking good!Working up high.Yipee! Done for the day. Getting dark.View out the double doors on south west side.
I do love building projects, especially ones like this which will be so beautiful when finished! I wouldn’t choose to work in this weather, however, Viking or no.
As the sun sets slowly in the west, Cheryl and my husband John put plywood on the joists of Cheryl’s tiny architect studio. Between the joists are some of the 4 inch thick rigid foam insulation pieces given to her through Craig’s list.
On sprinkely overcast days like today, sometimes I feel like just staying inside the nice warm house, but when I get outside and help with a project I always feel so invigorated and happy afterwards. Then when I go in the house I feel like I’ve gotten something accomplished. Today, while Cheryl and John worked on her studio, I spent my time outside insulating the pipes that run to the automatic watering troughs in the barn and fixing a broken latch and taking care of the horses with Ryan.
As the sun sets slowly in the west, Cheryl and my husband John put plywood on the joists of Cheryl’s tiny architect studio. Between the joists are some of the 4 inch thick rigid foam insulation pieces given to her through Craig’s list.
On sprinkely overcast days like today, sometimes I feel like just staying inside the nice warm house, but when I get outside and help with a project I always feel so invigorated and happy afterwards. Then when I go in the house I feel like I’ve gotten something accomplished. Today, while Cheryl and John worked on her studio, I spent my time outside insulating the pipes that run to the automatic watering troughs in the barn and fixing a broken latch and taking care of the horses with Ryan.
When we brought Honey and Bae home, we kept them separate from Mairsiedotes because we were not sure how well they would get along, and Mairsiedotes, being only a year old, is much smaller than the older horses. So we alternated which horses stayed in the corral and which stayed in the pasture. This allowed them to interact through the fence without the risk of fighting. After a while we saw the horses would prefer to stand by each other by the fence in the hot summer sun than stand in the shade away from each other, so we put them together and watched them all move to the shade.
Thepecking order was established, of course, with Honey as top mare, Mairsiedotes as second, and Bae on the bottom. Things were all right though, until we stopped letting them into the pasture due to rain and mud. We kept the horses in the corral because the corral has a base of hog fuel and fir shavings to keep their feet out of the mud. And we want to keep them out of the small pasture to keep the small pasture from becoming a mud pit. Unfortunately, the small corral was not big enough for the three of them to abide peaceably together and Mairsiedotes was getting the brunt of Honey’s nips and kicks.
Knowing this problem cannot continue, Cheryl and I finished Mairsiedotes stall today so she could rest without fear tonight.
Cheryl said Mairsiedotes laid down (in her stall) for the first time since the pasture became off limits. Then when she was done resting, she stood up and went near the other horses who were both standing near her stall wall. They wanted to be near each other, and could interact over the short wall, but Mairsiedotes could feel safe from Honey’s picking on her.
