Barn tales

Good evening folks.
I trust that this finds you all well.
This week I have spent most of the time so far out in the barn. I have justified this by telling myself that it is important to get the barn cleared so that when I begin to remove the skirting boards from the house next week I can store it properly out there as I want to recycle as much as it as possible. The truth is of course that I have been itching to get stuck in there as it is going to be my studio space ultimately.....
This is what it looked like when we bought the place. It had pretty much been used as a dumping ground and a coal store for the last thirty odd years.

Everything covered in a thick layer of dust and Halloween worthy cobwebs.

The first order of the week was to clear and sort everything out into "tip" and "things I want to keep and re use creatively" piles. Not that I was expecting much of the latter to be frank.
I do like these old slate tile pieces. Only one whole but the others will make good bases for some sculpture pieces. Or broken up to add decorative chips to the garden..... not sure yet

Interesting political cartoon piece came to light lol.

 Old windows, and some other interesting pieces came out in the end but more about those in a later post once they have been cleaned.

 As expected, the majority of the contents were trash, Old carpets, straw filled mattresses, piles of twigs and empty containers filled with dirt and twigs, scraps of wood... well you get the picture I'm sure. It took a good few days just to empty and bag everything ready to go to the tip.
Then it was time to begin to sweep the floor. again it took a couple of days and about five protective masks to sweep most of everything up. Believe it or not, this drain was not visible at all under the dirt!

At least there are plenty of hooks in the walls to hang a lantern on for more light.

By the end of yesterday I had filled around a dozen bags of dirt and dust; managed to fill a bucket and a half of coal and got down to the cobbles and the original hard clay floor where there were no cobbles.

Today, I cleared the rest of the barn and began to wash and sort out some of the old windows. pieces of wood etc but forgot to take photos so I'll leave that for another day.
The space looks pretty cool now and you get a real sense of the size of the space. I am full of ideas about the possibilities for the creative use of the space and can't wait to share with you the progress of stage one of the transformation.

Take care.