Our home. It does not get more Black Forest than this.

While the craziness rages outside in the form of a mentally ill president and his enablers, and covid runs rampant all around us, we’ve sequestered ourselves in a kind of self-imposed exile, wishing that grocery stores here did that curb-side-pickup thing that’s so popular in the US. The self isolation was broken momentarily yesterday as our architect came by for a walk-through of our barn with an interior builder - who we’ve worked with before and have had great experience with.

Fully masked, and in below zero temperatures, we made some important design decisions about the barn conversion to take place sometime during 2021. Exactly when, we’re not sure, but we’re cautiously optimistic it can happen this year.

The renovation is broken into two separate parts: the actual barn, which is a space of about 400 square feet, with a nasty uneven concrete floor and monstrous doors, holes everywhere to the outside, is the first part. About half of it has 16 foot ceilings, and the other half has about 10 foot ceilings.

So first thing is to imagine this without a lot of crap in it. Empty. This back part of the barn is going to be for wine storage for my husband’s wine business. Those back doors stay. They open outwards. Inside will be a second set of doors, opening inward, so that the outside facade stays the same. That beautiful wood wall on the left stays, and on the right, behind the shelves, will be restored Fachwerk. Fachwerk is exposed wood and plaster.

This is the front of the barn. Excuse the mess. These barn doors will be restored and insulated, with two long, rectangular windows with fine iron frames installed into them.

This barn is going to be used for the wine business primarily, with a work station and wine storage, plus a place for people to try wines. So it has to be practical AND beautiful.

The floor. Oh, the floor. For four years now we have kvetched about that damn floor. But yesterday, we finally made a decision. We are NOT taking up that concrete. We thought we would initially, as it’s a mess. Super uneven, broken up, you know, the usual things that 200 year old barns have. We also know the problems involved with taking up a cement floor. Like, what the hell is under it, for one. Like, the building can collapse, for two. Like, we’ll never get out of debt, for three.

Enter Herr Frommer, our interior construction guy. I love a German who comes and saves the day.

While our architect, who is very precise and considerate was calculating the costs of demolishing the concrete in low to mid five figures (cue PTSD renovation nausea here), Herr Frommer was just shaking his head.

He had been listening.

He heard me when I said I want the whole place to have an industrial, cool feel, with great music and cheap construction solutions and an artsy, chill feel.

He suggested the following: an layer of light weight insulating cement on top of the mess that’s there now, and then on top of that, OSB which will be finished with oil.

Yes, please, Herr Frommer.

Minimal cost. Maximum atmosphere. OSB is normally used as subfloor. It’s pieces of recycled wood pressed together into flat sheets. Here’s a apartment project in Paris that uses OSB as a finished flooring material:

The second part of the meeting was about the area above the garage, which was formerly a hayloft. This is my third hayloft conversion. Who knew I’d become a hayloft renovation specialist in this lifetime? Certainly not me!

You can see a corner of the upper level in the second photo above. The space is about the same size as the barn space itself, about 400 square feet. The plank floor is made of super wide planks - the kind very few can afford today. They’re over a couple of hundred years old. I definitely want to reuse them.

More discussing with Herr Frommer. As you can see here, there’s nothing underneath the planks except the cross beams holding them up.

This whole floor needs to be built up, with a bottom layer, then insulation, then a top layer of sub floor. On top of that layer, we could use these wooden planks. However… we made a different decision. We’re going to use the OSB as the finished floor here as well.

The planks will be sand blasted and oiled, and we will create an entire new ceiling out of them. This area has 14 food ceilings, so they are going to be spectacular with these wide planks. Here’s a picture of the ceiling as it is now, with just normal wood planks. Those are all going to be replaced by the oiled nut wood floorboards.

I actually think they look nice now - I can’t imagine how they are going to be when they are finished. I love repurposing the wood. And I’ll certainly find a use for the wood that’s up there right now.

Oh, and above this wood, there’s a whole other floor. But that’s for someone else’s dreams. This is enough for us.