Barn: progress despite the white stuff!

Barn: progress despite the white stuff!  The siding contractors are here, beavering away in their winter garb, hanging siding on the barn.  The last time I looked (a couple hours ago), they had three sides of the first story done.

Jim J. and his partner Ray L. were here this morning, installing sheathing on the ceiling of the first story, where the garage door hardware and opener will be mounted.  The garage door guy is overdue; Jim's trying to track him down.

The Rocky Mountain Power folks sent an inspector out to see if we did ok on the conduit that was installed in the trench yesterday.  We passed, with flying colors.  Now I need to backfill all that trench (that will go much faster than digging it!), get road base in to set the transformer base into, then call them for another inspection.  Only if we pass that one will they put us in queue for the actual work of connecting the power.

Yesterday I decided to make a change in our plans for using the barn.  I've been thinking about this change for several weeks now – especially every time I walk up onto the second floor of the barn.  Our original plan for where to put my office/electronics workshop was in a big room in the house's basement – about 300 sq. ft., though slightly oddly shaped.  There are pros and cons to having an office down there, but the biggest con for me was no view.  The size was ok, though the slightly odd layout would mean things wouldn't be exactly as I'd like them.  The second floor of the barn is way bigger (2,000 sq. ft.) than any conceivable need we have for storage, though it's possible I'll live to regret those words :)  The east end of the barn's second floor has four windows: one looking south, two looking east, and one looking north.  All of them have really nice views.  I could easily partition off 500 or 600 sq. ft. of that space, finish it (walls and insulation), put a little wood stove in there, and have a very nice space for me to work in.  Yesterday I decided to go for it; I talked with my builder and he's perfectly ok with doing it, when the rest of the barn is finished.  He's going to put in a stovepipe right away, though, so that the roofer can properly handle that when he puts down the steel.

Now I can hardly wait for it to be done!