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Back in October of 2010 my grand daughter wanted a horse barn. Not a big barn, but one for her plastic horses, kind of a doll house, but made for plastic horses. She gave me a plastic horse, so I would be certain to build it the right size. I studied several designs, and even downloaded a plan from the internet, but nothing was wanted or even approximately the right size, so I designed and built this horse barn for her based something like one of the designs, but built to a scale that would fit that specific plastic horse that she had given me. The agreement between us was, that I would build it, if she and her mom would paint it.
So I set about building the barn for her, mostly from the idea that was formulating in my head. As I got further into it, more and more ideas came to me and I incorporated as many as I could. I took some project pictures using my cell phone, and also using a small digital phone that I had at the time. Well, that little phone trashed every picture that I had taken, so I only have the few in progress photos that I took with my cell phone and they are the first photos posted here. It's 36" long, 18" high, and 14" deep.
I delivered the horse barn before realizing that the camera had trashed the pictures, so I was never able to take any replacements. My grand daughter and her mom spent quite a bit of time painting and staining it, but I wasn't able to visit them during this to take any progress photos. Then, when it was finished, my grand daughter wouldn't let me have it to take to my woodworking club, or even to take pictures of it without her coming along with it (it meant that much to her).
Ok, now 9 years later, she is a 21 year old adult and has just graduated from college with an associate degree. She no longer plays with the barn and they just bought a real farm. I volunteered to store the barn for safe keeping during their move, so I finally had the chance to take the pictures that I had wanted to take all these years.
The first few photos show the work in progress. Then comes the photos of the finished barn. The roof was BB plywood, grooved to make it look like metal roofing. All three roofs lift off as well as the floor of the hay loft in the center section.
I beamed the under side of each roof section to help the roof sections sit in place, but also to make them appear more real if you look in through a doorway and up at the under side of the roof. A steeple was planned, but she got to see the barn before the steeple was built, and wanted it just as it was. I decided to make coral fencing afterward, and with nothing to scale it to (she had the barn by this time) so it should have been a bit taller. My sister had a plastic farm when we were kids and I remembered how her coral fences had been built, so I made these with similar feet, and this idea worked out quite well.
This project took 9 years for me to build, and then finally to post it. I hope you all enjoy.
Charley
So I set about building the barn for her, mostly from the idea that was formulating in my head. As I got further into it, more and more ideas came to me and I incorporated as many as I could. I took some project pictures using my cell phone, and also using a small digital phone that I had at the time. Well, that little phone trashed every picture that I had taken, so I only have the few in progress photos that I took with my cell phone and they are the first photos posted here. It's 36" long, 18" high, and 14" deep.
I delivered the horse barn before realizing that the camera had trashed the pictures, so I was never able to take any replacements. My grand daughter and her mom spent quite a bit of time painting and staining it, but I wasn't able to visit them during this to take any progress photos. Then, when it was finished, my grand daughter wouldn't let me have it to take to my woodworking club, or even to take pictures of it without her coming along with it (it meant that much to her).
Ok, now 9 years later, she is a 21 year old adult and has just graduated from college with an associate degree. She no longer plays with the barn and they just bought a real farm. I volunteered to store the barn for safe keeping during their move, so I finally had the chance to take the pictures that I had wanted to take all these years.
The first few photos show the work in progress. Then comes the photos of the finished barn. The roof was BB plywood, grooved to make it look like metal roofing. All three roofs lift off as well as the floor of the hay loft in the center section.
I beamed the under side of each roof section to help the roof sections sit in place, but also to make them appear more real if you look in through a doorway and up at the under side of the roof. A steeple was planned, but she got to see the barn before the steeple was built, and wanted it just as it was. I decided to make coral fencing afterward, and with nothing to scale it to (she had the barn by this time) so it should have been a bit taller. My sister had a plastic farm when we were kids and I remembered how her coral fences had been built, so I made these with similar feet, and this idea worked out quite well.
This project took 9 years for me to build, and then finally to post it. I hope you all enjoy.
Charley
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