In May of 2020 a fierce storm came through my town of Groton, Massachusetts. Of course, the storm did not hit just my town but, Groton was hit harder than many other towns around us. There was house damage all over Groton. My husband and I thought we had made it through quite well when we "woke" up in the morning. I say "woke" because it was hard to sleep with all the howling of wind and crashing of trees. The main house appeared to have been spared, thankfully. It wasn't until my husband stepped out onto the back deck and looked towards our barn that sits away from the house and down a hill, that he noticed there was a dip in the roofline of the barn. A tree had crashed through the roof bringing serious damage with it.
That act of nature would start a rebuilding process for us that would come to bring countless sleepless nights, supply problem after supply problem, lie after lie, a loss of money and our belief in the goodness of man, some men, anyway.
As soon as the accident hit, we contacted our insurance company. Because the area had experienced so much loss, it took several months to get an agent to give us a quote and settlement. I guess the insurance companies were overwhelmed. We needed the quote in order to have the ability to make decisions as to how to proceed. Our choices turned out to be, (1) to level the barn and take the money (in hindsight that is what we should have done), (2) rebuild only the roof and leave the rest of the barn as-is, or (3) rebuild the whole barn from the ground up. We chose the latter. The old barn was in need of repair because of its age and the quote seemed pretty much able to cover the costs (we hoped) of the rebuild. And, as a final incentive, we thought a nice new barn would add to the value of our property. We thought we had made the right choice.
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| The old barn before the storm |
Finally in September of 2020, we had ironed out the details with the insurance company. We, then, went searching for a contractor, which was not that easy to do. It appears that barn builders are not plentiful and quite a hard thing to find, at least for our type of job. My husband found one on the internet, met with him, liked him and set out to have the barn rebuilt. Josh, the contractor, seemed very excited to rebuild the barn. He spoke with us about design and really made us feel at ease. My husband liked the guy. He was young and enthusiastic. And, he seemed to be available to start right away, something we were eager to do!
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| Decorations sometime before the storm |
What ended up happening was that Josh turned out to be a liar and a thief, in truth. He came up with excuse after excuse as to why he wasn't starting the job. Some of the excuses were Covid, supply chain issues, help issues, etc., things that seemed reasonable but, the problem was Josh never contacted us, at all. We always had to contact him about the delays. He was very evasive. Another problem was that he had asked for a large deposit to start the job. He said he needed it for materials. We thought that was reasonable...until...he started being totally absent. However, because he had our money, we could not go to another contractor at this point.
Eventually Josh did start building. He hired a subcontractor, Kenny, who turned out to be a guy one of my daughters had gone to middle or high school with. We thought, "Great! A trustworthy guy!" Someone we kind of knew. Kenny did great work...when he came...but he lied to us, too. He didn't come when he said he would, even after I had pretty much pleaded with him. He finally left the job vacant without ever putting a roof in place. It well could have been that Josh did not pay him. We'll never know because we never saw him again. So, we watched and waited as our barn just sat there not even half built. (As a sidenote: I had a potta-potty on my property, right next to the road, for well over a year. When we finally called the company to remove it, we were told Josh had stiffed them, too.)
After having been paralyzed with fear because of the money we had given Josh and not knowing how to proceed, we finally took the financial hit and looked for another contractor. We found one through a friend and again we were hopeful. Unfortunately, the next contractor lied to us also. I guess that is what they do, or at least some of them. He only worked half days and did not show up when he said he would. He had excuses too. He was sick. The materials didn't come in. He was on away. It was raining. We were despondent. Honestly, I know people went through these same issues during and after the pandemic but, we had explained to the new guy what we had gone through, and we thought he was sympathetic and wouldn't put us through the same things again.
Another sidenote: As the new contractor started to work on our barn, an older gentlemen dropped by and asked him why he was working on the barn. Wasn't this his son, Kenny's, job? Our contractor told him this job had been abandoned months ago. Even Kenny's own father didn't know what was going on.
However, after more months of waiting the new contractor did finally put on the roof. I think we had waited over a year for that to happen. The new contractor was more trustworthy and did go on to finish the whole barn for us eventually but, it was a tough and heartbreaking process to experience. We worried the whole time that it would never be finished and then what would we do?
I have to say that the mason, electrician, our neighbor who did the finishing loam work and the painter were great. They came when they said. Didn't ask for tons money up front before the work was done and did wonderful work. Some of our faith in humanity was restored but, we did learn some lessons through it all. We learned to get references, more than what is said on the internet, do not give too large a deposit ahead of the actual work being done and that it is best to find contractors in your own town, if possible. They were by far more trustworthy and seemed to come through in the best way. I suppose they have a reputation to uphold and sincerely want to make good neighbors.
So, the barn is pretty much done, and we are thrilled. It's funny. When terrible events are in the rear-view window, the wounds begin to heal. I did miss out on getting a cupola on top of the roof. This was something Josh told me he would add to the barn. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough money at the end to add that feature. Maybe in a little while we will revisit it. All that is left now to be done on the barn is to add some landscaping. I think we will do that ourselves but probably not until after the summer. We need a break from thinking about the barn...all the time :).
I do look forward to decorating the barn for holidays again. I truly enjoyed doing that for so many years with our old barn. I think my neighbors and passersby also liked to see what I came up with from season to season. I have one friend who looks forward to my husband putting up a Christmas star on the gable end of the barn every holiday season. I look forward, myself, to doing that, as well.
