Evolution of a boxing barn

Back in 1998 we had the farm appraised by an agricultural appraiser.  He looked at the house, then we went out and walked around the farmstead.  To our great surprise when he finished looking at everything he said very frankly, "None of these buildings have any real value.  They are all functionally obsolete."  We love our home and farm buildings so we were slightly affronted at his words but as he explained we did see his point.  The buildings are all very old and for any modern farm operation they would be useless.  Even the house was in need of major renovation.  The newest building on the farm is a pole building machine shed which was probably built in the 1970's and which has it's share of scars and problems.  

Nine years later, in 2007, we were moving to California - but not selling the farm.  Our dream was to return and retire here.  We had a major purge and cleaned out generations of junk in five of the outbuildings.  We filled several big dumpsters and had a burn pile going day and night for several weeks (one of the nice things about living in the country is that you are actually allowed to burn things).  Anything we wanted to save on the farm we put in the old machine shed because it could be locked up.

Fast forward another 9 years - we're back at the farm, along with our daughter Anne and her husband Kenji.  Our son-in-law is a talented guy who happens to be certified to teach boxing and related exercises to people who have Parkinson's disease.  Pete has benefitted hugely from four months of thrice-weekly training sessions with Kenji and I, as his "corner person" have trained right along with him.  Kenji has a desire to offer this invaluable training to more PD patients.  Unfortunately, the gym where he does training doesn't have room for the equipment and boxing ring he needs.  We started thinking about building a gym for him here on the farm.  Looking realistically at finances and talking to our builder/neighbor/friend Steve, he suggested that we rehab one of the "functionally obsolete" buildings we already have.  After looking at all of them he pointed at the old machine shed and said, "This is the best option."  Oy.  We saw his point and captured his vision but gosh, this building was FULL of 40 years of stuff that had been dumped and crammed in there, not to mention old insulation that was falling from the ceiling and walls.  Much discussion and prayer.  Final decision:  Let's DO IT!  

We set aside two days over Labor Day weekend to begin the purge - Saturday and Monday, giving ourselves Sunday to rest and recharge.  It would be a Labor Day weekend in the truest sense of the word.  Here's a picture of the sad state of affairs after pulling down the ceiling insulation.  We'd already hauled quite a bit of stuff out of there at this point but the overall mess gives you some idea of what we were up against:

There was so much insulation and wallboard to rip out to get the old office out of there.  That room has to go completely.  The wood was rotted through from several epic floods.

And at the end of the day today, after two long days of hard labor, here's the state of progress.  Still one corner of the room to clean out but overall, soooo much accomplished! Friends Dan and Kathy came and worked right along with us today - now THAT'S friendship.

Before:

After:

When the space is cleaned out, we'll have four more inches of concrete poured on the floor to raise it above flood level.   A few windows will be installed.  Then the walls and ceiling will be insulated and covered with clean white metal interior siding.  New lights, new heating, a boxing ring, mats, punching bags...and voila, a Boxing Barn in the Boondocks!  It's a venture of faith for all of us and we look forward to how God will use it.