Late last year my Aunt in Houston picked up this gigantic barn for Spencer and kept telling my Mom that it was pretty awesome. Finally we managed to get some photos of it and we immediately knew we were going to do something cool with it, but just didn’t know what that would be yet. Our first indicator that this thing was huge was that it cost $300 to ship it to the farm.
For the past year or so we’ve just had it on display in my parents sun room (and Spencer would occasionally play with it when we were at the farm). This Thanksgiving we made the decision that we (meaning myself primarily) were going to fix a farm play station for Spencer this Christmas as one of his gifts. We based this on the fact that he already loves his Schleich Farm Animals that I’ve been picking up for him the past few years. My original vision was to get one of those small play tables and just set the barn and animals on that but this project quickly grew out of hand once we saw how large the barn was. Oh, by the way, we figured out that the barn was manufactured by Breyer, and is apparently a highly sought after piece for collectors since it’s not in production anymore.
Well, Dad and I spent the better part of a weekend traveling around central Arkansas looking for a play table large enough to accommodate this “mega barn”, and we came up empty. That following week I was driving through downtown Conway and noticed that there was an antique story going out of business and they were selling all of their old fixtures. Having had family in retail I knew that typical display fixtures from the 60’s and 70’s were very well made and seeing as how the business had been there for a while there might be a good chance that she’d have what I was looking for. Fortunately she did… the only problem, it was a 5×5 display table that was about 3 feet tall. It also had some storage compartments underneath it that were packed with merchandise. I made her an offer on the table and the next thing I knew she and I were cleaning out the table.
Now, my next challenge… How in the world am I going to get this big honking table home so I can start to work on it repurposing it, and how were we going to do this without Spencer seeing it? Long story short, I borrowed a trailer from a friend and another friend met me downtown to help me load this 1,000 lb piece of furniture. Eventually we got the thing loaded and back to our house so we could get to work on the project.
My initial plan was to have a lot more detailed play area with roads and ponds, etc., but after giving it some thought and playing back and forth in my mind that “he’s three years old”, I decided to simplify my plans a bit.
The first thing that we did with the table was to install a sheet of astroturf on the top so we could build up from there. Secondly, I went to work on the barn. I wanted to paint the barn to make it look more realistic. Little did I know that this project alone would take me the better part of 13hrs, and it would be one of the more intricate pieces of artwork that I’ve ever worked on. My high school art teacher, Mr. Cobb, would be proud of how things turned out I think.
Next, after the barn was finished I decided that there was still a little bit of room left on the table for some more farm elements so I purchased some miniature corrals and loading shoots that were to scale with his Schleich Farm Animals. We decided that since he still likes to get things and disassemble them that we would affix these corrals and catch pens to a thin piece of pegboard that we had also lined with turf. It was from this point that things got really creative and what you see in the images below are the finished product.
Now, all that remains to be seen is if he is even remotely interested in the play table given the fact that he has a half million other gifts under the tree. Hopefully he will… his parents have worked their butts off on this project!
Project Photos
These are photos of the barn before we did anything to it. I did some research and it was manufactured by Beyer and is no longer available, so it’s in pretty high demand among collectors, etc. (click on photo thumbnails for larger view)
I snapped these photos of the barn immediately after I had finished painting the barn. What’s so crazy about painting this barn was that I think that maybe someone had tried to paint it before because there were some places on the exterior that took as many as 20 coats of paint before it would match the same color red on other parts of the barn. (click on photo thumbnails for larger view)
Of course the plan is for the barn to sit on a large play table that allows Spencer to be about eye level with the barn and “his farm operation”, so finding the right play table was a near impossible task until I ran across a business in town that was going out of business so I purchased one of her display fixtures and hauled it to our house so I could “repurpose” the table as Spencer’s new play table. What I didn’t know when I was negotiating with the business owner was that the table weighs a ton and it’s very well put together! In the photos below, you will notice that we’ve covered the top of the table with astroturf and Donna has started painting the trim to match our interior colors.
Once I had all of the “elements” for this project together (after multiple shopping trips locating just the right pieces), I began to layout how I wanted for everything to lineup on the board…. and I realized, he’s going to have this torn apart in a few minutes. So, I had some sheets of peg board cut and I covered them with burlap (to simulate a pasture). Next I hot glued all of the small pieces for the corrall, etc. to the burlap. I’m not 100% sure that this is going to work, but if not we will find a stronger glue!
These are the photos of the barn when I got everything completed and placed on the table, please disregard any touchups that we still have to make later…
Oh, and if any of you see me heading into Hobby Lobby with a determined look on my face at any point in the future, please make me snap out of it. This project wore me out…
Questions or Comments?