Last Chance and No Escaping the Barn

Today is my last chance to redeem myself in the eyes of the karate gods, and the funny thing is, it wouldn't take much in terms of time and effort. Besides, I was at the pool yesterday and became acutely aware of the battle of the bulge. There are some seriously unhealthy people out there, but to their credit, they don't let it stop them from having fun. All the more power to them.


My mentor's friend D is coming over today to look over the barn and give us feedback and advice. part of this process will be for us to have questions and decisions ready for him, which means we'll be clueless, lost, and unprepared, just like always. But at the very least, we'll be one step further along in this process. One of the biggest issues that we face is what to do with that darn siding. We like the rustic look of the wood and would like to keep it as it is for the aesthetics as well as the simplicity and convenience (i.e., it's already on there), but there seems to be a number of issues, first of which is the amount of wear that it has already incurred over the years. Not sure how old the barn is, but it has been hit a bit by the weather and such, and it shows.

Note the darkening of the wood near the ground, and the boards were put on green such that they have contracted and now have gaps between them. Apparently this can be easily amended by way of spray foam, but everything sounds easy in theory and isn't always so in practice. The other issue is that I'm not sure if they put Tyvek under one side of the house, and if they did not, whether or not this is an issue. Will have to investigate all these things. So many questions, I just don't know what they are. The beautiful thing about situations like this is that I don't know anything but can't seem to come up with any questions until after the source of information has left and gone home. Of course, I wish someone else would simply deal with all this, but such is the life of a real man in training.

Another issue that is just eating away at us are those windows. Nobody seems to like those windows, and I have to confess that they are not the best, though they work. And they are on the there already, so that's a huge bonus. Most of the people we talk to, including my mentor, don't seem to blink an eye at the idea of pouring money into a project. It's just no big deal to them, and maybe that's the way it should be, but I have a lot of trouble with it. It just makes me uneasy, and the idea of replacing the windows at the cost of thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars, just doesn't sit well with me. Maybe this is all a process.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.