Barn

Don't you think barns are great? They have so much character. Old barns can represent a time gone by, when they protected the farm animals from the elements and stored their food. That was when everyone had a cow for milk, chickens for eggs, and sheep for wool. In some ways it feels like we are heading back in that direction.

This is our barn now. We built it in 2002 after hurricane Juan took the roof off our old barn. The old barn was a huge 30ft by 100ft. It was built in 1927 by Albert Ling whose son is our current neighbour. He hauled sand from the dunes at Brackey, by horse and wagon. It was the first barn built on the island using modern truss construction methods. Before, barns were limited in size by the size of trees that were available. To my knowledge there is only one barn still standing on the island from that early era with the same construction method as our old barn.

Our new barn is much smaller. I took the design from a picture of a blacksmith's shop from 1918. The roof's pitch is the same as the other outbuildings that were built in the same general time period.

I want to paint it this year. What do you think, dark green with white trim or white with green trim?