MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Spring 2021

28 the last time a contractor set foot in the space. Kate, with the assistance of Matt at times, has since hauled every stick of lumber, made every mitred cut and fought with every batt of insulation. And they salvaged or reused the majority of the materials. She pried up, sorted and stacked each board of the hayloft floor, periodically re- sorting and relocating the pile around the property while the renovation progressed. “Moving the wood was so annoying, just the worst way to do a project,” Kate says, shaking her head. “But I was determined to make use of every piece I had.” A cousin donated his grandfather’s discarded corrugated steel roofing, and it’s now installed underside-out, bearing the original “Thornbury, Ont.” stamp. Friends donated their excess building materials and finishes. “My grandfather was a farmer, and he would much rather reuse something he had on hand than go to a store and buy something. It’s just stubbornness, really. At every step I would think to myself, ‘Do I really need to buy that? Can’t I just reuse something?’” “Dying for natural light” along the south-facing wall, Kate and Matt scoured the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for windows. Local blacksmith Dano Harris built the metal railings, and she finally relented and hired professionals for the finished ceiling. But the rest is all Kate, mostly working alone while Matt was at his 9 to 5. “Every step of the process felt like the worst job imaginable. When we were in it, it was just dreadful,” Kate remembers. “But once you move on to the next project, the last one doesn’t seem all that bad.” Throughout the renovation, Kate was creating in the space—huddled close to her glassblowing furnace while snow blew in through cracks in the siding, whirled through the barn and accumulated on her work surfaces. “It was very cold. I would blow glass if “At every step I would think to myself, ‘Do I really need to buy that? Can’t I just reuse something?’”