Jeannie's barn

As much as I am ready for this year to be over, I wish the Bridle Tree Barn Raising Challenge could go on forever. This has been such a fun community event, and I have really enjoyed seeing everyone's barns. Here's one of my absolute favorites. Thank you, Jeannie for allowing me to share the story of its creation!

Building a Barn Façade

by Jeannie of Phoenix Ranch

I didn't finish or even start a barn or stable this December, but I made a barn façade for my Schleichs in 2012. In Germany, we have many old barns and some new barns built in a similar way with timber frame style. Lots of them have a cobblestone pavement,  so I made this too with air drying clay. 

I started with a paper covered foam board and added wooden strips.

With a steak knife I put a lot of scratches onto the wooden strips so they looked old. I drilled many tiny holes for indication of wooden pegs. Then I put a tooth pick in every hole and snapped it off with a cutter. I painted everything with acrylic paint.

I filled the gaps with air drying clay and used a small strip of wood in the desired size of the bricks to print in the bricks.

I'm not sure anymore how I did the rough look of the bricks. The air drying clay had a disadvantage of shrinking but it was not too bad.

It was a lot of bricks!

I put a wash of thinned down acrylic paint on the bricks.

Then I painted each brick with pastels in varying colors. I sealed them with a sealer spray and painted the joints  with watered down acrylic paint.

All done with the bricks!

Next, I added windows made of wooden strips. I put a photo of a indoor stable behind the window.

I madedoors.

This is a very typical barn door in Germany.

Here is the façade before I added the roof.

The roof is made of Balsa wood. This is a very soft wood, and I worked with different tools and knifes and a wire brush to achieve the look of a thatched roof. I painted it with thin layers of acrylic paint.

You can open the barn doors and for an illusion I put photos of the interior of a barn inside.

I illuminated the inside of the barn door and the windows. I also made a cobblestone pavement with air drying clay.

I added a little fence...

And a bird house.

 Here is my barn all dressed up for the holidays.

Happy new year from Phoenix Ranch!

Thank you again, Jeannie. I wonder how hard it would be to build one of those in traditional scale?