I said I would start to share more about my story once a week so here goes nothing!
The year everything changed was 2013. I had a big plan & even bigger dreams. Somehow I never saw the barn as a huge mess just a place that had so much potential. Looking back I have no idea how I was so set on my vision and didn’t see all the obstacles. Everyone else involved atsaid I was crazy and ran for the hills as far away from me and this farm. So there I was just a female with a falling down barn and an overgrown farm.
Yet I was a woman on a mission. I never would’ve imagined some of the hurdles and challenges I have faced over the last 8 years. The farm had been nearly abandoned and the barn would have collapsed in a few more years without some serious work. Somehow the mess didn’t look that bad to me. I swear now it would take me two weeks to clean in the same condition and not because I’m pregnant. I cleaned that barn in two days and it wasn’t even difficult it was fun 藍
I wish I had the same enthusiasm and stamina now as I did then but I am a lot more realistic these days 路♀️ Though I will always be a future focused achiever with big dreams.
I did not know half the floor was rotting upstairs from the leaking roof or that the concrete milk shed on the south side was providing structural support. I was afraid the blackberries surrounding it might be holding it together as well. I had a dump trailer from hauling our & parked it in front of the barn. I started a in the cement cow watering trough behind the barn & put on some coveralls & a mask & went to town cleaning粒
I started researching everything about old barns. I found a barn again program & I got the barn registered as a heritage barn & then a King County designated landmark.
Then I started writing ✍️ grants that first year and I was awarded the first 2 that I wrote. One was the largest grant awarded for a historic barn in the history of WA state. 朗I never knew it would take months of public hearings to get the skylights on the north side approved and every little change in plans had to be approved by a committee of King County Historic Preservation Staff members but it was all worth it. @ The Red Barn Farm
