We’re told that our barn was built in the late 1700’s, brining it 20+ years older than our house. There’s so much character in that old barn, including hand -hewn beams and reeeaaaalllllyyy old saddle hooks.
Right now our barn houses yard equipment rather than animals, however a red-breasted black bird has made a home in the loft. Still, in my book, a barn and a tire swing are the epitome of country living, and ever since we moved into our house, I have wanted to enhance the Americana feel to the outside of our barn. I wanted it to scream American country living. A great big American flag for this small town USA.
On Friday, Sean taped out the measurements for the flag, and over the weekend, I got to work.
I knew that this project was going to be a little challenging for me as my fear of heights is intense. Just looking at a ladder makes me break out in a sweat. But I had to conquer and move on. No looking down…
Since I wanted the flag to look a little old and faded, I dry brushed the paint on. I started with the white stripes.
When I was picking out the blue, I knew I needed to heed on the brighter shade as the dark red of the barn would darken up the blue. I used a Benjamin Moore (2066-10), and painted that in place.
Now the tedious part. I had to do all kinds of math to figure out the right size of the stars and the spacing. Somewhere along the way I figured out that the stars needed to be 7 inches.
I made a pattern the exact size of the blue area. I cut out the 50 stars and spaced them by eye. At this point, I had a math headache. I taped the stars in place, cut 9 inch strips, numbered each one, and then hand cut out each star with an x-acto knife.
Tedious!!
I tacked the strips in place on the barn, one at a time, and painted on the stars like you would using a stencil.
Painted. Moved the ladder. Painted. Moved the ladder.
I was so glad to paint on that last star. After I was done cleaning up my mess, I stood back and looked at that flag.
I put my hand over my heart and said the Pledge.
The flag turned out exactly how I wanted. And it brought true Americana to our barn in our small town USA.
