I've been converted

Last week Mr. A and I were at the local big orange do-it-yourself home-and-garden store, and as we were leaving – all loaded down with half a ton of potting soil, plants, tools, bags of mesquite chunks for the barbecue (one sale, two for one) and other assorted yard-related stuff – he pointed out a couple of prefabricated sheds that were parked up against the side of the building, in the shade.

"It's hot out here," he said. "Why don't you stay here and look at these sheds and I'll go get the car?"

It was hot, and I knew he'd been wanting one of those sheds – I figured he wanted me to examine the construction so that I would be adequately prepared to discuss it later, when we would weigh the pros and cons of getting one for the house.

So I stayed. Even though my first instinct was "forget it." For as long as I can remember I've pretty much hated the shape of the roofline of the classic "red barn" type of building – especially when it's used for very small buildings, like the one in this picture. Something about it just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the proportion that bugs me – in comparison to the size of the building itself this kind of roof seems bloated and deformed, instead of simple and straightforward, the way a roof is supposed to be. Maybe it seems presumptuous to use four lines to make a roof, instead of the plainer, more modest two. Or maybe I just instinctively find it ugly. Who knows why?

Anyway, what happened is that I walked into the biggest one they had to see how it looked from the inside – and instantly fell madly in love with it. It was a plain, rough-finished, not especially well-constructed 10x12' demonstration building – the same size as the building I've been plotting in my head for several years now, always afraid to actually make the commitment to materials and labor until I'm SURE I have the design absolutely perfect – but this one was the tall version, with 8' walls, instead of the usual 6' – and inside it had a loft that went all the way around three sides, almost like a second story.

Standing in that shed I finally realized the genius of the weird, rounded roofline: It opens up the whole inside of the building, so that you can actually use the space up under the roof. Suddenly I was envisioning a curtained sleeping area, a little walkway lined with shelves and books, a reading area with cushions and lamps and a little chest table for flowers and tea things ... and that was just one of the levels. The ground level was still huge – big enough for a whole small room's worth of art space, work space, dance space, yoga space, PMS/menstrual hut space, miniature wood stove space ....

In other words, instead of being just one little room that would have to contain everything I ever wanted to do, be or feel in my imaginary hut, I was suddenly able to picture a space that was also – a space. Empty and full, both at the same time.

I keep looking out the window now at the place I've decided to build it, and I think it's going to work. Slowly, I'm still amassing materials – the giant hardwood French doors I bought two summers ago are leaning against the back of the house, there are two or three farm loads of lumber back by the wood pile – at least some of it will be usable – and a few weeks ago at a yard sale I bought a set of barn door sliders for a ridiculously low price. These I had been wanting to use instead of trying to hang the doors on hinges, even before I opened my mind to the possibility of a building that actually looks like a barn – and maybe having them available, good as new in their white cardboard box, was part of what made it possible for me to consider a design I hadn't even thought about seriously enough to reject.

This is what those sliders look like, if you don't already know what I'm talking about. My plan is not to use them to slide covers over the French doors, like in this picture, but to actually attach the sliders to the French doors. The ones I got are the plain galvanized ones – not fancy black round ones like these ... and now, hmm, looking at this picture I'm thinking – maybe instead of the barn roof, I could just build the walls themselves up higher, so they go straight up a few feet on the second level before coming to a regular triangular pitch. It would definitely make it feel more like a little house on the inside, rather than a cozy little barn loft ....

Mr. A thinks that would look weird, and maybe it would. Although the shape is not totally unprecedented – there are lots of older houses in this valley that still have old wooden water tower stands in the back, that have been turned into little buildings. I'll have to think about it, and maybe build a model first, just to see. For right now I mainly just want to sit with the idea of this barn-shaped roof and see how I feel about it after a little time has passed.

At some point, if the building is ever going to actually be built, I will need to stop assessing options and make a decision and start building. I do have a pretty strong tendency to "dwell in possibility," as the t-shirt says ... not necessarily always in a good way. This project does seem to be continuously creeping forward, though. And I am enjoying the process.