Washhouse

Steven has spent considerable effort this year trying to get all our outbuildings restored and into shape to last another 50 or more years. He did a great job on the garage earlier, and all this fall, he concentrated on the Washhouse.

Of course, we no longer use the wash-house for washing (as it was originally designed back before the farm had indoor plumbing -- people did their bathing and clothes washing in the washhouse. It had a hand pump inside, and a wood stove for heating water, etc.) Now these days we use it as a tool shed, and we have an overflowing amount of tools in it. However, some wood lapboards around the base needed replaced, some structural work done, and then a good tightening up of the whole thing. We had the roof replaced a year or so ago.

Steven took one side at a time. Scraped, repair, foamed cracks, caulked. On each old window, he carefully removed the glass from the window panes so it could be cleaned, then he cleaned and sanded the window frames and primed them while the glass was out.

cleaning the window frame to prepare to put the glass panes back in

laying down the bead of glazing for the pane.

my job was to place the glass and put in the points to hold it before he put the top layer of glazing over the points.

West side is done, starting on south side, and the process begins again...

brother David came out to lend a hand with the primer coat (each areas took two coats of paint)

KIDS - don't try this at home! Steven has excellent balance, but it still made me nervous that he was standing on top of the ladder painting around live power lines...

almost done at this point. It was totally finished shortly thereafter. Steven even painted the hardware on the door (black). I guess I didn't get a photo after it was all complete.

[EDIT - I decided to take and post a better photo of the finished shed]


This was all back in November. We also attempted to do some tilling of the garden to ready it for the winter-over. However, it was so terribly dry at this point:


Only got a little of it done before the tiller had a tire problem.

December has been better -- finally some moisture in the way of rain. We could still use more, but feel blessed for what we have received. Some neighbors helped us out on getting enough hay for the goats to make it through the winter. Now it is just "sit tight and wait until spring" mode on the farm.

Tracy