Day 19: A Chilly Milestone

The Barn Doors Are Finally Complete!

It is the first cold and windy day of The Traveling Pheasant’s restoration and conversion process and it is quite the change! So far, the majority of the time has been painfully hot and dripping with sweat! [Looking back now, saying it was “freezing” was so dramatic – its nothing compared to what this winter has been!] Thankfully, it was sunny and starting the morning with a cup of coffee while warming up in the sunshine was lovely.

Today is also the day I am determined to get the barn doors finished! I have been working on them on and off, and after some difficulties and frustration, I needed to take a break from them and focus on other parts of the trailer (like the rear and the service side frames.)

If the doors come together faster than anticipated I would love to also tackle the other pesky pain point that remains unfinished – the front side of the wing flaps. I still need to find a solution to remove the stubborn paint that refuses to budge and cannot be sanded due to the small awkward-angled locations. I do doubt that I will get to this today but, I can still remain hopeful!

I took a good amount of footage today for a proper progress update which you can watch below.

Let’s Do This!

It seemed that every time I felt the right barn door was completed, something else would pop up. Whether it was that an area had begun to re-rust from under the primed paint, or I noticed section that actually needed more work that my tired eye had previously missed. With the re-rusting, this required me to sand down of the area all over again to thoroughly remove the paint, wipe it with degreaser to remove any debris and re-apply a more generous amount of the rust inhibitor.

Once this was taken care of, I set to work to meticulously re-sand the front and back, every elevated surface of the frame, around the hinges and deep into and around the handles. The left side door followed the same process; however, this side required some more Bondo touch up, fixing some of the issues we had with it before that after another look, were not so great.

At long last, the doors were ready to be primed! I set up a makeshift tarp out of a large yard waste trash bag and secured around the edges with scrap wood and stones to stop the wind from wreaking havoc on my fresh paint.

It was a fabulous feeling seeing the paint coat these hard-won smooth surfaces and an even greater relief that it did not reveal any areas that needed more work that only became visible after the paint had been applied.

The most stunning restoration is on the ledge of the right barn door. There was an area that was completely rusted through and, after help from friends, was cut out and patched. After grinding, Bondo and sanding, I can't believe that you could never tell! Major win!

As suspected, I did not get to the wing flaps today, but they will not escape my attention! With the famous words of Scarlett O’Hara: “Tomorrow is another day.”

I am just so happy that the barn doors are finally finished! I may have done a little happy dance, not going to lie.

Thank you for following the mobile coffee bar and horse trailer renovation progress, celebrating the wins right along with me!

Ticking the boxes & determined to find a wings solution,

Heather