February brought snow and that made the work days short, cold, and wet. We wore wool socks and warm gloves under our construction gloves to keep warm, and spent most of the first two weeks finishing sanding all the faded red paint off the outside of the trailer. It was tedious and boring work- but we did it with excitement most days, talking about painting it- what color would it be? Dreaming of weddings, parties, hot days at the farmers markets, and cool nights under the glow of rodeo lights….. It was that excitement that kept us going through the cold days.

We had to buy a huge tarp to keep the trailer (sorta) dry because the roof leaked through a hole in the fiberglass, but that didn't become an issue until later in the project… At the end of January we had gotten all but two of the steel doors off the trailer- there were 8 total- with the notion that we would easily build new ones out of wood. We had also cut out the interior stalls for the horses, so now we were left with a giant open space. Getting the doors off was a huge step forward, and we did most of it with a chisel and hammer (thanks Annabelle's dad), but we had also bought an angle grinder at Lowes and watched “How to Cut Through Steel” videos on youtube. In the midst of all of the angle grinding and hauling the doors off, we both ended up with our fair share of cuts, scrapes and smashed fingers. It was a whole new learning curve, but we were up to the challenge and began learning how to skillfully use all the different power tools we needed too.

One snowy morning, we went and bought a 8 foot piece of steel which we needed to cover the lower portion of the front of the trailer because it was rusted out and full of holes. They had cut the piece we needed to the specific dimensions and then given us the rest of our scraps to take as well. It was incredibly comical getting the steel into the Subaru; when the guy brought it to the car with a forklift, and saw our optimistic faces,

**he said “hell yeah it’ll fit- just be careful with the edges”**, and helped us carefully maneuver it into the car. We laughed all the way home from our separate sides of the steel jammed between us, Kayley shifting it into gear for me as we drove away.

When we installed it, somehow the process went perfectly. Everything lined up, we pre-drilled holes in the piece we were adhering it to so that we only had to drill through one layer of steel and we glued it into place with some super construction adhesive. There were only a few moments like this- where we installed something perfectly the first time and, man, what a high.

Most days we were filling our cars with wood and going to the hardware store multiple times. Next we started building the doors out of wood that we dug through the 70% rack at Home Depot to find. It was an incredible stroke of luck that we found that much usable wood for so cheap- about $250 worth of wood for about $65. This is when we developed our favorite saying: “Juniper’s built on bargains!” We originally built 6 barn doors out of wood; the back doors being two huge solid doors that we were so proud of. Eventually we realized two solid back doors would be too heavy for the hinges we had and it would be easier to turn them into dutch doors, but more on that later. The days were filled with chopping, sanding, staining, polyurethaning and gluing the wood together to build the new doors. At first, we thought they turned out perfectly and we were thrilled. But we soon learned it wasn't that simple- because of the changing temperatures and the fact that no two door frames are the same size, it became more of a challenge. We had to measure every angle of each of the 6 door frames and build a custom door for it, only for it not to fit the next time we tried to fit it in the frame because the wood had expanded and now it was too big. This was frustrating, but ultimately we got them all to work, just took a few rounds of trimming them down.

We then started on the floor- choosing a laminate flooring that matched the wood stain practically perfectly was another lucky event. We couldn't wait to install it, but first we had to scrub the horse sh*t off the original red floor, fill the gaps with insulations foam, and then install the subfloor. This was a whole thing, especially since we didn’t know paint could freeze so we left it outside and- it froze. So the subfloor got painted with chunky white paint, but oh well! Now we know you shouldn't leave paint outside in February.

By the end of the month we had outside almost fully sanded, the wood doors finished, the subfloor in and painted, and took the tires off one side at a time to start sanding the red paint off from behind the tires. The snow had finally melted and the sun had come back out too, and we had many days spent out in the cold sunshine laughing and feeling good about all the progress we had made.