Upcycling.....

                                                           This is what we started with

                                               Taking all the wood off

                                             5 hours later we are getting there.....

                                            The wood after putting a thin layer of varnish on it

The stone planter as we were removing it from the house. We are upcycling the stone into a fire pit in the back yard. Hopefully I will have some pictures of the done fire pit before the snow falls :)

                                                  The wall all ready for the barn wood

                                          Getting there....

Another upcycling project. Rick got this door for me at a job he was working at for $15.00. I removed the screen and painted it white with crackle paint. I am having a mirror put on the back of it and then I am going to replace the by-fold closet doors in the entryway. You can see the closet doorway in the corner of the next picture. I will of course put pictures up when I have it all done.  

And here is the last picture that you are going to get....The wall almost done......

We have been busy! A friend told us that he was taking down an old shed/corn crib at his brothers farm that had barn wood on it. He asked if we wanted it and I jumped at the offer!

So on Saturday armed with hammers and crowbars Rick and I started our weekend (well maybe more the a weekend) project. I will gladly admit that I am not use to manual labor! It was so hard getting the wood off and doing it so that we did not break the boards. Then after getting the boards off I had to pound all the nail out. My hands were so sore by the end of the day that I could hardly move them. I am weak! But it was so worth all the pain. It took us around 5 hours to get most of the wood off and loaded into the truck.

Sunday we got up early and went to Menards and picked up 2 gallons of varnish. We decided the put a light coat of varnish on the wood to seal it up so the paint does not chip off and to keep the slivers in. We did not want to sand it or plane it off because then we would lose all the beautiful red and white colors in the boards. We had hoped to get some of the wood on the wall but by the time we got all the wood stained and started to prep the room we ran out of time.

Good thing Monday was a holiday and we both had it off. We decided to remove the stone planter that was at the top of the steps. I have hated it since we moved into the house. We were happy that it come out pretty easily. The cement pretty much fell off the stones so we decided to upcycle them too. I hauled them all the the back yard to be use for a fire pit. It should look much better then the old tire rim we are using now.

After a lot of figuring out Rick got the closet framed out and was finally able to start getting the wood on the wall. While he was doing that I started working on the new closet door. It was a little stressful putting on the crackle paint. You really have to be very careful about putting on the paint. I am so happy to say that it turned out great! I just have to put on a clear top coat to seal it up and then I can take it to Waseca Glass to have a mirror put on it.

Rick got the whole wall done! It looks so good, the pictures do not do it justest.  I am going to make you all wait to see it until we have everything done. We are taking the carpet off the steps and putting wood ones in and replacing the handrail with a more rustic one. I am also going to paint the front door. Hopefully this coming weekend we get get most of the work done.

Later Sharon