Ugly duckling becomes a swan and "let there be light!"

door- BEFORE- blue paint and peeling

Well the weather was super hot and humid this past weekend- Francis got to work in the "airconditioning" all weekend. Okay, its not air conditioned really but because the stable is in the undercroft of the barn and has a lovely stone foundation, it always much cooler in the stable than outside. 

Door -AFTER- absolutely love the finish - this is au naturel-
no stain, or any other produce on it

This weekend had some finishing touches done to the tack room. The door was hung after being lovingly restored to its former glory. The door was repurposed/recycled. Years ago this old wooden door was the door into the garage. This is an antique door I had painted it blue ( you know how it was in the 80's??). Anyway, Francis painstakingly removed all the old paint with stripper and heat gun to  reveal all the wood and its wonderful engravings. Its has crenellations around the glass. He decided that as it took him two full days to get one side done, he would leave the other side as it was. "You can paint it as it is on the inside of the tack room". "Yes", I said-- little does he know that I am not going to paint it but rather will ask him to restore that side as well, but at a later date ( maybe next year?); for now "it will do". Francis says these are my famous words....lol when I am working on something and am fed up with it.Anyway, he bought wheels for it so now we have also repurposed one of the old stall door sliders so the door can slide open/closed. You see, sliding doors are much more user friendly in the barn- can be opened with your foot when your arms are full of tack; don't take up valuable space in the tack room; don't bang into the horses when they are tied in the alleyway.....PS don't look at the dirty glass-- I still have to clean that

The final job was to have lighting put in.... you see I (um , we) don't have electrical service to the barn. But "Francis fix tout "( for those of you non- French people "tout" means all" or everything").This is an ongoing joke between us- you see all week I break things, cant' get things to work etc and he comes home on the weekend and fixes everything so I can find more things that need fixing for the next week ( No seriously, he likes to be kept busy  lol) . We joke around that I keep finding things for him to renovate/fix so he won't leave me... he is too much of a gentleman to leave a damsel in distress......In fact, that is how we started going out together. We met at a motorcycle club, and he and friends dropped by as we were supposed to go biking. Unfortunately, I was trying to get my pool open for the season for the first time on my own. He sacrificed the bike ride and stayed behind to help me deal with the winter cover and get it going etc. and the rest as they say is history. He is always whining about the pool and how much work it is ( grrhhhh)..........but you see I know he really doesn't mean it  as without the pool we would not have met ( hehe). Francis has been renovating/fixing things for the last 12 years!! In fact our "anniversary" is soon approaching- 12 years on June 11 ( and no I won't tell you why we picked that date but I'll leave to  guess). Oops, sorry went off on a tangent there for a sec.. so back to the barn..........anyway I came home from work on Saturday evening at 1115pm to find Francis waiting outside. He wanted me to go  and check out his accomplishments of the day.......and hey presto we went into the barn and he flipped a switch and the place lit up! So exciting!! He has installed LED 12Volt lights hooked up to a solar panel... ingenious I say. What a difference they make when trying to muck out stalls on a dreary rainy day. I can even bring the horses in from outside after sunset-!! ( OK it may not seem like a big deal to non- horsey people but do you know how hard it is to get them in by flashlight??).

the barn at night-- lights, glorious lights

Hard to believe this is possible from a tiny solar panel that is

14" x 4" long and some 12 Volt LED lights