FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN ASKING

WHAT'S GOING ON OVER THERE?

The Great White Room in My Great White Barn!

Across from the Village Store, My Great White Barn has attracted some attention. No wonder! Cars and trucks coming and going, lumber deliveries, an insulation truck almost as long as my driveway, and endless buzzing and banging...
The news is, the project is nearing completion! Almost faster than I can keep up with the blogs.  Saturday past the insulation truck and a single person worked all day, finishing that portion of the project, so the walls could be finished. This week has been finish the dry wall upstairs and install the doors week! 

Stairwell to the second floor

The completed dry walls, stair well and 2nd floor, have left me thinking of all the possibilities for "the great white room" in My Great White Barn. Funny how much larger the room looks with dry wall...
AND
the first activity will take place in that room next Thurs...6 o'clock yoga has been bumped from town hall because of two meetings starting at 7...Eurika...instead of changing the time, we can change the place.

Slider as seen from interior

Slider from the exterior...

Meanwhile, the slider arrived and has been put in place. Thanking Ed Boyer for the inspiration of an interior slider to save heat AND to save the aesthetics of the real barn doors. It's looking great. 

Front door

Four other insulated doors are also on the agenda, necessary to maintain gallery and the great white room as two separate heating zones. Front door, door to stairwell storage, gallery door to entry way and second floor door from Great White Room to second floor storage area. 

Gallery to entry way

Door to the stairwell storage

Missing still? The official lighting. Wiring is done and fixtures selected, but the electrician is evidently busy somewhere else. It happens.
The downstairs floor will be sanded and urethaned, waiting for the electrician to finish, and the upstairs floor is a question still. 

Assuming all goes as planned, (does it ever?) I'll be posting a photo of the first yoga class in the Great White Room, and soon thereafter I should be able to start hanging for the preview exhibition...scheduled for Oct 14! 

If you see the doors open, you're welcome to poke your head in and see it for real, or wait for the first exhibit when the gallery is all dressed up and ready to go!

FREEDOM GALLERY: Upstairs, Downstairs

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS, WALLS AND DOORS

Upstairs

A phrased often used to describe the development of a New England home site is,"Big house, little house, back house, barn...You can't travel far in New England without seeing the big house, little house, back house, barn...with the barn often connected to the big house.   

As the rehabbing progresses, I find myself thinking, upstairs, downstairs, walls and doors.


 
Upstairs (actually 2/3's of the upstairs) is being dry walled, both walls and ceiling, with the second floor and stairwell insulated and heated separately from the downstairs. Drywalls, taping and sizing are in process. Insulation has been blown in, or fiberglassed, varying with the situation.
Retrofitting barns with insulation wasn't something anyone thought about 30 or 50 years ago.

Downstairs will have a different look. Ceiling beams are maintained and a second "shell" of barn wood creates the inside wall, hiding the insulation. 

Downstairs

Because effectively insulating barn doors and old windows with old glass is difficult if not impossible, several strategies are being used. Window frames are insulated and thermal "interior" storm windows will be installed. The glass next to the open barn door, pictured above, is ready and waiting. 

Of the four sets of barn doors visible from the exterior, the two middle sets will be hidden inside behind insulation and walls...a gallery needs hanging space.


The far end will be left as is, operating as garage doors, and the near end will be left working and visible from the interior, but a thermal 8 foot slider will be inset with  a narrow shelf above it reaching to the ceiling. The structure for the slider is also visible above.

Details waiting!

The garage portion still holds some of the details...rennai waiting to be installed and several doors, furniture displaced, waiting to return.

And so, the Great White Barn is shifting with the times, entering the fifth phase of her life since 1865. Neither connected nor close to my house, by New England standards, she started smaller, was doubled in size towards the back, with her loft out the back and her barn door in the front,  either connected to or very close to the Merritt House which was moved out of town and has since burned down.

At some time after the property switched hands, The Great White Barn became a carriage house with four sets of doors on the side, as pictured to the left.

With Mary Hockmeyer, the barn took on the new role of gallery and meeting place with some fun parties as well, accompanied by an old player piano. And, also started with Mary, the Old Home Week Annual Lawn Party.
Barn, bigger barn, carriage house, gallery and meeting place, and fifth phase, winterized gallery, meeting place for continued fun activities Times change...

No official opening date yet, but aiming for mid-October with an exhibit of regional art...White Mountain Landscapes, Townscapes, Lakescapes! And of course Freedom Rings in the Holidays.  Classes, yoga, and creative workshops in the new year.