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I finally got around to building a bridge across our creek this weekend. It's nothing fancy by any means. I had these two 20' Locust logs left over from a 100-year old cabin that used to be on my land. The cabin has long since fallen down, but the log sill beams were still in pretty good shape, so I dragged them over with my lawn mower. After some wrangling and rigging, I managed to get them set in place.  I have been waiting for some salvage decking boards to come my way, and last week they finally did!  I love the slightly funky boardwalk look. It has a weathered, work-worn character like the old cabin it came from.  We have a large field separated by a creek in the middle, so we could only walk so far and then turn around. Now we can finally walk a full circle around the field.
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I was visiting one of my neighbors recently and noticed he has several sprawling barns that are in various stages of atrophy and decay. It inspired me to give you a tour of the local barns in my valley. Notice how the boards on this one are buckling and popping loose as the corner drops:  It's easy to take these old relics for granted. It seems like they've always looked old and decrepit. But, of course, they are slowly but surely falling down.
 Old barns have a mystery and a presence about them that I just love. Just about every where you look, you'll see some formerly well used artifact, half buried in the dirt floor or hanging on the walls. Here's a fine example of a beautiful old log barn. It looks good at first glance, but notice how the footing is pushing out on the left front corner.  Most of the barns in this area were designed for hanging tobacco in. They're just no longer used or needed anymore. I suspect it won't be long before many, if not most, of them will be settled into heaps of debris.  This barn used to have a wooden silo attached on the left side. Just last year it was still standing, but as you can see, it has caved in on itself. This farm has several well-cared-for old barns as well. 
Take a moment to admire the way this thing sways and rambles along:  I love the effort they've put in trying to keep this one standing. So far, so good.  The effort here is a little more casual:  I believe this next one is an old commissary, but I don't really know. It looks like one, anyway. Notice the bars on the windows.
Somehow, this post seems fitting for Memorial day. So many veterans came back from the wars and went to work on these old farms.
I've been "too busy to blog" lately, but I thought I'd take a moment to show you a few repairs and improvements I recently made for my client Debbie. Debbie really loves her home, and she plans to stay in it for a long time, so she made a list of "little things" she wanted done to make her house just right. Everybody has those; even if you buy a great house, there's usually that one little thing that you want to change. In Debbie's case, I was able to make a few simple changes that updated the house and brought it out of the 20th century and into the 21st. In this post, I'm going to show how just a few small updates gave a fresh look to the porch. Here's a "before" shot:  Her chief complaints about this porch were the railings (which were rotten and peeling) and the dated light fixtures and shutters. I replaced the railings with new Trex composite railings which will never need to be repainted:  Then I updated the light fixtures:
And last, but not least, I updated the windows. She wanted the windows to look taller, so I added white trim at the top and bottom of each window, and then I updated the shutters with something more stylish:  Now she has a porch with solid railings that will last a lifetime, and trim and details that make it look fresh and contemporary. This is yet another example of how a modest budget can make a big difference.   |
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Welcome to my blog! This is a chronicle of the adventures of Arthur Teel, a handyman working in Asheville and Weaverville, NC. Need someone to fix your home?
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April 2022
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