Background

I guess the best place to start is with a bit of history.

My wife and I decided to turn a 40s era dairy barn into a home. This was when we still retained a bit of sanity, so we went through the iterations of design, planning, regulations, and the myriad of other minutia to get this project up and running.

The barn in question was built by W. T. Sanders (my great-grandfather) and his son-in-law T.R. Adams (my grandfather). In January of 1951 T.R. Adams decided to get out of the dairy business due to a misunderstanding with his father in law. Rather than have hard feelings it was easier to simply get out and the barn simply became a rather large storage building. One thing you learn about storage space is that you WILL find a way to fill it up.



It's a great location adjacent to a pond in Sanford where my wife and I were married. But this was just the beginning of a long and bizarre journey involving all manner of decisions. New construction and renovation are worlds apart. And if you're interested in preservation, be prepared to make some strange decisions.

We started this process in 2005, finished design work in December of 2006, bid things out through the spring of '07 and the first nail went in in August of '07. What a long journey!