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lakeland public television presentscommon ground brought to youby the minnesota arts and cultural heritage fundand the citizens of minnesota. ♫ ♫ ♩ ♩ ♩ ♩ hi i'm john parsons. how do you reclaim an old barn? we find out in this episodeof common ground. hi i'm tim. hi, i'm maryand you're here at tootsie b and our old reclaim barn.first of all it's a reclaimedbarn from northern minnesota, not far from here. a lot of these old barns just fall

down and thankfully the people that had this one saw that there was some value in it and hated to see it just fall down so they advertised it for sale rather than just letting it rot. so i wish more people would do that but a lot of the old things that would be great. well we went to look at thisold barn and it had some structural problems. the foundation was falling away and the roof was getting bad from trees rubbing on it over the years and was starting to let water in. and so it wouldn't have been longand there wouldn't have beenenough to salvage. fortunately, they had the foresightto advertise it and

so we bought it anyway. [chuckles] so my wife and i took this down,, the two of usby ourselves and completelydisassembled it board by board, denailed it, brought it home and stored it and eventually put it back up whereit is sitting today. it tookus months yeah we started in the late fall, early winter and then wefinished up in real early spring. of course we didn't do it everyday. as the weather was conducive and we felt up to it.we're getting older. being a builder, i understood that okaythis is just a big shell. ifyou were taking down a home that had all these interior partitions and everything else. it would be so much more

labor intense. a barn is a big open building with a floor init. loose hay and cows on the bottom and that was it. so to me it wasn't that big of a challenge. okay we take the roof off and we take the walls down. that's not a big deal. when we rebuilt the barn, what we do is we would get a load on thetruck work and take it down, denail it andload it on the truck and comehome. and i would drive in and unload the truck and mary would make supper and by the time i was done unloading the truck and stacking it all,supper would be ready and thenwe'd do it again. well it fit in that gray shed back there so it took up both sides, with room to drive through still. i would say it was 40 feet longby

10 feet wide by 8 feet high.two piles. and when we were taking down the barn, my wife said,"you sure we knowwhat we are doing?" [laughter] and his response was honey,gravity is on our side. we think it is a pretty cool old structure that we hope will stand for a long time. there is a story behind just about every piece here. when we were taking down the big rafters that formed the radius of the roof for the barn we found a gentleman's name,inar olsen

he wrote it in big cursive, it was very easy to read. i'm a carpenter myself and i tend to put my name in placesthat i think somebody willfind them someday as i'm building things. so i understand his thoughtprocess when did that. he was proud of his workand i was glad he had signed the barn in several places. there wassome of the old originalmaterial stored in the soffits when they built the barn that just never got used and got tossed in there. so we found some of that. the trolley system was intact and matter fact that rope on the front of the barn is the original rope that was with the barn. they used to use horses when they built thesebarns and that's how theywould get the hay up

there. when we found the barn thebig old hay door was about 12 feet by 8 feet was hanging in the down position and so that big door that would have been the hay door is now closed permanently because i don't want pigeons in there. but the lower door the small one actually opens up to my wood shop. and is actually handy for getting materialsin and out, light and air soit's a functional door. that smaller one in the middle. the old trolley system was completely intact on the barn and it's got pulley's on it for raising the hay up and down and we put a big bucket on there and put flowers in it and would raise it up to the height we wanted it

but the grand kids got a hold of the ropeand drug it all the way to the top and in order to get it down i need to set scaffolding up. so some day i'll get that bucket back down and we usually we put flowers and things in there. the grandkids like to pull on the rope so it's the knudson in them i think. when we were bargaining with the owner of the barn, he wanted $500 for the old galvanized cupola that was up there.mary and i didn't really care for that cupola especially for $500. so i agreed to take it off the barn and give it to him. and so that cupolai built to sort of match the look of the barn which is fairly common in barn building in some

areas. the new one that is upthere has windows that open soi can get out on the roof, if i need to work on the weather vane or something like that. we employed some different construction techniques we raised up the floor downstairs. it used to be a 7 foot ceiling because it was an old dairy barn and now it's a 10 foot high ceiling the old floor used to interrupt the wall framing at 7 feet and so the top 3 feet of wall wereweakened. the wall was notchedto the floor and so it was starting to bow. and by moving that floor upthat added to the engineering

and strength of the building. well all these old barns when they were built they didn't have the luxury of sheet goods. and we do today and sheet goodshave a lot of structural integrity. so i put plywood on all these walls before i sided them. so the siding will never have to hold the barn. in the old days they would just nail the siding on and when the barn started to lean a little bit. they'd put more nails in and nail her off some moreso the siding held the buildings pretty much braced it. if the barn started to lean a little bit, they put more nails in it. and many of those boards had 4 nails where they originally had two and thenthey would

oh put another one in and then put another in and you know that's how they kept them up. and so we rebuilt it we sheeted it and then sided it. so it will stand for a long time. we addeddormers to the upstairs roof so we would get some natural light in the loft upstairs and it adds some character to the outside of the barn. and now it's much better. when we took this barn downit wasn't 100% whole so we you end up with probably of 75 - 80% of what you need to put it back up. so this siding here was reclaimed off of another barn that was falling down because i could match the patina fairlywell.

good customer of ourstold us about a house that had burnt and the porch was still intact. so we wereable to negotiate for that porch andreclaim it. and so the nautical look which is somewhat appropriatesince we are on the banks of the mississippi, the headwaters. part of the deal was that i would build her a porchswing stand out of some of theold reclaimed material. and the rest of it we used to put the lean-to on the barnbehind us. so it worked out well for both of us. she got a beautiful old porch swing stand and we got a beautifullean-to on our barn. this porch

swing was made from reclaimed architectural modelings and porch corbels and there isa couple of door jamsunderneath there that are the support for the swing. that was bought by a lady and i need to build her a stand forbecause she doesn't have aporch, unfortunately. but i do, do that i build stands. but that is all reclaimed materialwith the exception of thechain. the other porch swing you see there is made from reclaimed old growth mahogany. beautiful wood. and then there is the spindles on the arms there are old maplearm chair spindles. it's all

repurposed again except for the chains.i like to put those on new. and the term mill work means that it has been milled. this would be considered millwork this top piece because it's beenmilled to a specific shape. this is just what i would call flat stock mahogany but it is old growth mahogany, real tight grain, hard mahogany and not like what we normally see around here. i'm going to take a guess andsay it's honduras mahogany. i don't knowthat for a fact it wasreclaimed. but it's beautiful wood. this wind chimes were made from recycled liquor bottles on a rainy day you wouldn'tbelieve how nice it is

to sit on the porch because you are outside. we sit out there and play scrabble just watch it rain. there is something comforting about sitting on aporch in the rain. we spend a lot of time there. it's such a wonderful feature of old homes. that unfortunately they don't do much anymore. the dragonfly's are probablyour most popular item. they are made fromarchitectural millwork again. all various shapes and then we use spindles for the body and doorknobs, cabinet knobs, different accessories for the heads andtails eyes. people love them. we can't seem to keep enough of them.

we sold out at art in the park last year and had to make more thatevening. we didn't realize how popular they'd be. but they are very unique and there all repurposed old furniture legs and millwork cut into the shape of dragonflywings and doorknobs and things like that.they're fairly unique each oneis different. the old material is a farbetter grade of material, but it also has some defects from time, it has nails in it. some of it we consider character,some of it we have to work out of it. the quality of wood is better than what i can buytoday. and so i really enjoy being able to reclaim

and reuse some of the old woods. they were allowed to grow longer tighter grain. it's kind of a pleasure to have that. i have quite an abundance of it. that i make things from. i appreciate the older woods. there are a lot of challenges working with the reclaimed material as opposed to the new material. there is what the weather has done to it. how it fits inyour saw. the nails the fasteners that werein it as it went through theyears. it's harder on my equipment andi have to take more time withit. i have to be more selective on what i use.so your saw blades don't last as long. the good thing is the character from the old use

whether it be a nail hole, an old hinge mortis something like that gives character and people who buy our porch swings love that stuff. you can see the square nail a lot of times i leave the head of the nail inthe board. and then poly over it and they love that and i do too. you know that it is an old board. it is challenging because it is hard on equipment. but it is worth the effort because you reclaimed it. it didn't go into a landfill or a fire. it's got some history. we find it intriguing a lot of the old millwork ismore appealing to the eye than what they have today. that most people can afford at least.

a lot more craftsmanship went into it in the old days and i appreciate that then we see the inside of the store. you will see that everything in there is all repurposed. everything has old millwork. what we would call fancy today and wayout of the norm of what anybody woulduse or could afford to usetoday. so i try to reclaim, we try to reclaim as much as we can because the grain is tighter, it's old growth material it's a much higher grade material than what i can go to the store and bytoday. it's got so much more characterthan the new stuff that i canbuy. granted it's probably easier forsomebody to go and by squareflat

reasonably straight material, not that it would stay that way it's a challenge to work with the reclaimed materials. well located in our barn,i have a life dream and it's called tootsie b. it's a clothing boutique i love the feminine styles. the clothing that i have here representsthat. hi welcome to tootsie b. in our entry way, a nice feature here is this ceiling light that is a number of different lamps put together to make one fabulous chandelier. the entry doors as you come inare reclaimed french doors.

from a local antique store we found them.coming further in we have a dressing room, where you can try on anyone of fabulous outfits and the valance into that area is a headboard that has beenjust flipped upside down so you can appreciate the beautiful carving on it. the mirror also is an old dresser that we just cut down and have installed it over the mirroras just an added featurethere. the porch post that is cut in half the long ways and doorknobs attached to it is where you can hang your clothingwhen you are trying onsomething new

i would like to show you a reallygood example of repurposing this happens to be a coatthat i've made, they have it displayed on aporch post. these are arm off of a chair and this is oneof the seats off of a chair and it stands on a weightedlamp base. also the door we happened to seea house being tore down on bemidji avenue. so that's abeautiful old beveled glass door and we stopped and said hey, what are you going to do with that door? ohdo you want

it. yes because it's a beautiful old door. so that was destined for thedump and we saved that. the old wire mannequin is kind of an example to mepersonally of ladylike femininity and thatis my advertising catch phrase: embracing ladylike femininity. and so i like to include that mannequin in all of my correspondence and advertising. here again at this wall. we have this triplemirror that we salvage from a store in town as well. up here on this little pedestal

we've got an old claw foot tub that is used as place for display. if you up on the ceiling we have a light cove. the cove is some of our reclaimed architectural modelingthat my husband has made into a light cove. the ceiling is reclaimed ceiling tins that came out of a church we found those on ebay. all of windows and baseboard in the entire store is the reclaimed modeling that we got out of georgia. we also found this great piece of

gingerbread that came out of chicago. i found that at a garage sale. we heat this entire building with old radiators. also we installed in this partition wall and old round top window that just kind of creates a fabulous display area for some of the repurpsosed men ties that i make into belts. the window of course is so used that you could neveruse it in an exterior wall it's a very nice decorativething to have.

this used to be the part of the barn that was my sewing room. tim gave up his woodshop and i gave my sewing and we expanded this last winter for my display area.we used an old screed door right here as a way to display jewelry. this grouping of items that the ball beads and the skeletonkeys are made locally by maryjo dahland it's all copper clad with glass.and another local artist lynn sandusky she does lamp work. these are all hand made glass. she also has seed pod that she has clad with

cooper. if you shake it youcan hear the seed inside. it's just a pendant put iton a chain. the colonnade that tim installed in here, is a beautiful old piece out ofa fabulous housein dubuque iowa. typically a colonnade is just basically a room divider but a very fancy room divider. you'd set plants on the little short walls and keep your china in a fantastic built in. this colonnade helps you bring youback to when times were much simpler. this is an example of one of the signs that i make.

it pretty much says it all.back to the simple life. in the corner of this room i have a ladder that we picked up at an auction and were told that it came out of swanmark's hardware hank here in bemidji. and right nextto it is a cabinet that belonged to my grandfather who was the post master in longville, oh i don't know 100 years agoor so and that was the cabinet that he used to keep all his important postal things in. you know i have a few vintage things in here but not a lot the case is full of old shoesand

old hand held mirrors. we just got done remodeling naylor's into trek school. and this belonged to bob naylor's parents it actually works. it's really cool,i giggle every time i turn it on. it actually feels kindof good on your back. it works like a charm. probably didn't get overused. i want to make sure that you notice one of the most unique things about tootsie b and that is

the main chandelier which is an old lamp shade i love the shabbiness of it. so we gave it centerpiece location in our shop. we also have as a great little display area, this reclaimed porch. includes the railing that we got all of this at a salvage warehousein minneapolis. and the gingerbread the little stick and ball that goes along withit. and thought you know what porches don't always have to be outsidesometimes they can be inside and it'sa unique little feature attootsie b

as well. my cash counterhere is an old desk and we made a new topfor it. i did a china mosaic on it. these are justold china dishes that were part of the dishes that we used for our weddingreception as well as some family piecesincluding a brooch that was my mothers. this is something that oldpicture rail is something youdon't see at homes anymore, but that's a prettycool thing. we actually used for displaying items on. and that's how they did it in the old days so they didn't put holes in the wall. they were quite the decorative item

in the old days. i enjoy all the architecturaldetail. that was in the older buildings thatyou don't see in the newbuildings today. we looked at our old home yesterday. it was two-story big home and all the millwork had been taken outand there was this skinny little modern stuff and the character was gone in there. it was fairly sterile. i was disappointed. i was hopingto see this grandeur that i see in the older homesthat normally you would see but that one it was gone. i think that

is a base from an old heater. that the flower pot is sittingin. it works really nice for a flower pot. my wife has the eye for that sort of stuff. she comes up with the ideas and i try to make them if there is any building involved. she makes some stuff but i get involved in it quitea bit. my only fear though isthat she'll learn to weld. well i think it really is good and healthy for our economy to repurpose and reuse. we have plenty of good valuable resources right here within our reach. we don't need to

receive goods from overseas. we really don't save money doing that because you know it takes food or money out of a persons pocket that lives here in this county and it also encourages bad behavior in other countries where there is slave labor and prison labor and things that like that producethose goods. the pioneers who settled this area didn't throw things away. they didn't have dump to go to. they didn't have a recycling center either. so they would look at an object when they were finished with the original intended purpose and say what are we going to do with thisand they would find anotheruse for it.

it may end up heating your homebut chances are it found some other useful purpose first. so they didn't really throwthings out like the disposable societythat we live in today. recycling is great but repurposing is even better because it givesit new life. a better life i guess. our parentsgeneration was such that we didn't throw anything away that was at all useful. and we learned that from them and we kind of feel like we throw too much stuff in the dump and the trash andso being able to recognize thebeauty of somethings

or the usefulness of somethings means a lotto us. well say hey we canmake something out of that. oh that'sreally cool for this. oh yeah that used to be an old shed for something else but now it's going to be a chicken coop. we don't want to throw that out yet. i know mary's dad was that way and my parentswere too. i came from a family of 12 children so everything was hand-me down and we just learned to appreciate having somethingrather than throwing something out. one of the thrills about repurposing things is tosee that it can have a longer life as something else. to just throw it away seems

like such a waste. why not make it into something new and continue to use itand continue to enjoy it. most of the things we repurpose are things that were made in america, are some pretty quality, good qualitygoods. and much of things that get throw away these days they've been made cheaply, probably from a third world country where the people are oppressed. so we just appreciate the things that we have a lot of good resources in this country and we like to not throw them out.

repurposing items is fun. you feel like you have empowerment. control over your life instead of everything is just use it and throw it away. you make it into something fun and you just feel better about, it's good for the environment and it's good for yourself esteem. you created something that no one else has before. you use your imagination and a little bit of confidence you'd be amazed at what you can do. it allows you to express your creativity.

repurposing items within a household is a great way to stretch the family budget. you don'talways have to go buy a new container when you buy something in bulk. you can use some old jar or old canisters like pioneers used. plus it's decorative in your kitchen. well my dream was to have a clothing boutique. i just never expected i would ever get to have that because it'sfairly a far fetched or it has been until i came across tim's path and being a carpenter

and a prince. he gave me my dream. when we had the barnit seemed like a logical place to have a very unique setting as well as unique items. we try to have things that are one of a kind here and i really thinkwe've achieved that. except for the only problem is i don't sew. but mary'sin my woodshop all the time so that's really the biggest problem i find. he didn't ask for problems.

[laughter]heaven helps us if she learns to weld. yeah well don't touch my sewing machine honey. "tootsie b" is a nickname that my mother gave me as a small girl actually mary's mom past away a couple years ago but she had all white hair and when this tree is in full bloom it always reminded me of her. it's just the way her hair was that tree just reminded me of her. the kids love to climb in it. it's an easy treefor them to climb. they climbup

and sit up there and hang out. dogs are buried under it. history and memories with that tree. thanks for watching. join me again next time for another episode of common ground. if you have an idea for a common ground piece that pertains to north central minnesota emailus legacy@lptv.org or call us 218-333-3022. to view any episode of common groundon line visit us at lptv.org

to order individual segments or entire episodes of commonground please call 218-333-3020. common ground is brought to you by the minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people on the 4th of november 2008.