Doing it right the first time is pounded in my head - Agweek | #1 source for agriculture news, farming, markets

Oct 25, 2024

I’ve never been real good at many things. If I’m being honest, it’s more often the case that I am good enough at whatever I am currently pursuing.

There are obvious problems with that. I’m seeing evidence of that every day that I work on remodeling a building on our property. I call it a shop now, but its previous life, one of many, was a small animal barn. Its past lives have been covered up over time. It started out as a wooden structure painted as needed. Thankfully the bones were put together quite well, but it's been likely over 75 years that the building was first built. An asphalt siding in the pattern of brown brick covered that wood siding. Blue hard board siding went over that. Commercial steel siding that was recycled from another damaged building covered that. It seems if there was sign of weathering, the next owner just covered it up.

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In my attempt to open interior walls and rid the structure of critters of all shapes and sizes (mainly mice and the snakes that may be hunting them) I noticed that none of those coverings were doing much good because there still remained holes in the siding that went over the old siding. Numerous holes, not pretty ones, were made over the years and never sealed over. Large animals could slip through these holes. That’s a problem when I don’t even want Asian beetles inside. Of course, stopping those would be a modern miracle.

Where there was once a window or door opening, they simply put siding over it. At the time it maybe made sense, but now it just makes work. While some portions of the building had insulation, others were left without. My goal is to insulate the whole thing and keep mice from enjoying that warm sealed space.

I’ve slowly made my way around the building pulling out what is damaged or rotten and replacing and recovering as I go along to hopefully keep this building standing. I am realizing that past property owners have all had different methods and ideas of what’s good enough. In any given board there are no less than three types of screws, and several varieties of nails. I go along unscrewing every Phillips head, then switch to torx and square head. I remove 8-penny and 16-penny nails that have been hammered in all angles then dig out others that have been air nailed in. It’s taking time just to pull things apart and the list of things I need to put back together keeps growing.

It’s annoying, to be sure. If they were like me, they probably thought this would be the last time they would have to deal with it. I can recall many projects of my own in the past that have gone that way. When I ran out of one screw and would switch to whatever I could find from a coffee can filled with different screws and nails. No doubt I muttered that it was "good enough." Sometimes I just didn’t have time or money to get the tools and hardware I needed, so I used what I had. That works in the moment but can lead to more time and energy down the road, more than likely for the next person who has to come and fix what I previously mended.

Farmers know about this all too well. A shabby repair of a fence will no doubt have to be revisited once the cattle notice the weak spot. A quick weld job meant to hold "just long enough" will come apart at the worst of times.

I have a long way to go on this project and much remains open to the elements despite winter perhaps not far down the road. I am trying to secure the structure with a limited selection of fasteners. It's getting tighter, and the mice will soon struggle to find a home there. Don't worry, there are still plenty of other places around here to live. I have assured the cat of that.

Having done enough of these remodel projects, I recognize that doing things right the first time can save me from doing things over down the road. It took me some time to figure this out, but this project is hammering home the message of doing good work.

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While this structure is old and not exactly straight as an arrow anymore, it has stood this long through heavy snowloads, at least one tornado, countless mice and the wild remodeling of generation after generation. Here’s hoping it enjoys a new life sooner rather than later.

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