JUNE 13 UPDATE: A door! And windows!

Well, if you just look at the south side of the house, you might just be fooled into believing that this building never was a granary. (Don't worry, though -- plenty of granary character will still show through in the final product, I think.) After all those days of prep work, there are now three nice big windows in place, and a fancy schmancy front door!

Shimming the windows into place. This is apparently a good deal easier than trying to cut the rough opening more exactly. And I guess the openings shifted some with all their pounding on the roof, so there's plenty of shimming to do.


Installing the door. It's an overly tall door, and a little narrower than average, which makes it look even taller. But it is nice and of good quality, I think.

... Of course, there is the hardware problem. I called the Pella store in Fargo today, and the woman I talked to was very helpful. (I had already been talking to her about ordering windows, so that might have made her more receptive to my door questions.) I explained that we had bought this door at an auction, and that it didn't come with any hardware. She said that's typical -- the company strips all the hardware before they send the doors to the auction. And then she said there's a reason we got that door for such a steal -- the hardware for the door can cost as much or more than people at the auction paid for the door itself -- as much as $400! Apparently when it says brass hardware, it's really made of brass. But then we started discussing specifics, and when she found out we have only one door instead of two (this is technically a patio door) she said, "Oh, good. That will bring your cost down." She said it would take her a while to get an exact cost for me, since she'd have to dive into the parts catalog and look everything up, but that I should hear from her early next week.

And I did get the windows ordered that I wanted -- we were worried about the cost of delivery from Fargo if we ordered direct from the Pella store, but their delivery charge was just $50! Sheesh, it would cost us more in gas for the trip than that. But she said they make frequent deliveries to northeast South Dakota (probably to Menard's in Aberdeen) so it wouldn't be a big deal for them at all.


Sofia watched the proceedings from the pickup cab.


I realized after I downloaded all my photos that I don't really have a great picture of the door itself. This is the best I have ... I'll have to get a better photo of it later.


Here's a view from later in the afternoon, with the windows and door in place. (Door open, unfortunately. I'll work on a better photo tomorrow.) There will be one more window on the south side -- on the blank spot toward the east. It will be a somewhat smaller window, which will be over one side of the L-shaped kitchen counter.