Barn Building - Last Day of Spring!

Barn building continues ... into summer.  What we had thought would be a project finished mid-winter, turned into late spring, turned into ... please oh please let me have a barn before winter hits again!  And all due to circumstances beyond our control - snow and snow and snow, then county bureaucracy.  Good times.  But so much has happened on the barn in the last week, I can't believe it!  Things continue to go in an order I didn't expect (just today, 4 windows were put into the walls -- we have no roof, and only framing on the walls, but we have windows!). Elmer and Sam, of Quality Buildings, and their team are doing a beautiful job and have been such a pleasure to work with!  I keep telling them I am going to make them crazy before this is all finished, and I think they're starting to believe me (poor Sam had to move the entire framing for 2 windows today by about 8".  And he smiled the whole time as I told him they had to move.  Poor Sam. But they had to move. Is there an eventing barn-building equivalent of a "bride-zilla??"  Oops, I might be that girl.)

Monday June 16

We have a "wall!"

Tuesday June 17

We have many "walls!"

Friday June 20 - last day of spring!

It feels like we almost have a castle!!

Barn's Still Building

It's funny how you have certain expectations for how something will be built, only to discover nothing happens as you expect it!  At this point in my barn building land, we have an absolutely beautiful concrete slab layout that looks strikingly similar to the architectural designs layout of my barn plans ... with a 3-D rendering of a wash stall in the middle! Not what I expected. Definitely thought walls and roof before floor. But even without walls, or a roof, I have to say it was incredibly exciting to walk sort-of-in (or maybe on) my barn this weekend!!

Barn Building: Week... Isn't it finished yet?!

My intentions of posting a weekly progress update on the barn construction has failed -- mostly because progress stalled due to 1) we're a horse farm, 2) we're in Anne Arundel county.  Thanks Maryland. And that about sums up the last 6 weeks of my life.  Amazing how you can do everything right, yet when a single individual yields unchecked power without an effective appeal process ... sorry, did someone say we live in the 21st century in modern democratic America??  Thankfully Maryland has some fantastic horse people in the area who were ready and willing to take on a good fight on my behalf -- and we won, in a roundabout way.  No restitution, no apology.  But the barn moves forward, so I guess that's something. And my advice to anyone building anything in Maryland: GET IT ALL IN WRITING.  Thankfully we did, so it just took 6 weeks to get someone with some sense to read that writing!  I can only imagine how much worse things could have been had we not.

So, here is this week's photographic evidence of building progress!

THE BARN!
Perimeter foundation done and plumbing going in.
The large walls on the right are the wash stall ... or what I loving refer to as the Trevi Manor prison cell!

Arena drainage and base installation -- SO MANY ROCKS!

Arena with hay shed/equipment storage wall ... ready for mirrors!