Dan Antion

Abandoned Buildings or Barns – CFFC

As the title suggests, this week, Cee gave us the following challenge,

“This week our topic is celebrating Abandoned Buildings or Barns. Just make sure your Building or Barn is clearly visible in your photo. Have fun.”

I love old painted ads on the sides of buildings. Even when faded, they tell a story.
Another building in sad shape, but I am imagining an old time hardware store.
I wish it was still a train station, but I’m glad the building remains intact.
This appears to be a tight merger of two buildings. It’s interesting. I wish the plywood wasn’t hiding what I’m guessing is a beautiful corner door.
Faith found this small building while hiking.
The train station is finally being repaired
Sad – Once proud building
This barn has seen better days. I hope someone gives it the attention it deserves.
We’ve been in this barn several times. My favorites have been the times we’ve had hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps here during Christmas by Candlelight, OSV’s holiday event.
The field next to this barn is barren and the barn looks to be packed to the gills.
One of the nearby tobacco farms is tearing down a lot of their barns. They are too expensive to maintain.
Barn near the train tracks that run parallel to the Windsor Locks Canal
This barn is loaded. The ones around our house don’t have the openings on the gable ends.
I love this barn!
What’s wrong with this picture?
This barn seems to be all that remains on this lot. I think it’s nice enough to build a house around.


If you like magical realism with suspense, action and a bit of family sarcasm, you will enjoy these books:

Knuckleheads
The Evil You Choose
When Evil Chooses You

Series page on Amazon

My profile page (and books) on Lulu

All available on Kindle Unlimited!

76 comments

  1. My daughter recently purchased a property which has a couple of barns. One is really old. I would love to share the photos, but don’t see when anyone can send attachments

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • About the only thing you can do is link to them, if they are in your blog’s media library or an online gallery (Flickr, facebook, instagram, etc.) I would love to have a barn, or enough property to have one.

      Like

      Reply

  4. Hi Dan – I love the idea of ghost-signs … so much history available through these … and now we have street art. Your barns and old buildings are quite fascinating to see … I hope they can restore many of them, or convert them into buildings. We’re so short of space here … cheers Hilary

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I love finding thos old signs, Hilary. Somehow, I think they are even more interesting when they are faded. I hope the barns around here can be saved. I’ve seen one where the owner restored the barn and then built a bridging structure to make it part of their house. A big job, but it must be a fantastic space.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. Love the sign on the little building Faith discovered! Barns have always been a favorite of mine, but it’s so sad that they seem to be the first building left to disrepair. All these buildings have a history. They had a “life”. They were functional.

    The photo of the barn by the Windsor Locks looks like a postcard picture! Heck, we don’t see postcards anymore either!

    Your photos make it evident that not only are these buildings in disrepair, a big portion of the world is.
    Ginger

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I, too, like that building Faith found.

      The “postcard” building was almost the banner image of my blog. It’s about 1/2 mile from the image at the top, with the stairs going down to the water. Both are alongside the Windsor Locks Canal.

      I miss postcards. I remember the first thing we did when we went on vacation was to buy and send postcards.

      I hope some of these buildings can be saved.

      Happy Monday. I hope you have a good week, Ginger!

      Like

      Reply

  6. An old farm down the road had a machine and operator come in and they cut the center out of a row of barns and machine buildings. Now the pieces they left are unstable, look really rough, and just seem sadder even than before. I always like seeing your tobacco barns because they are full of character and history.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • So many of the tobacco barns are gone, Judy. Replaced by vertical slabs of concrete. It is so sad driving down the road that used to divide two huge tobacco fields. I hate seeing barns torn down.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  9. Nice Dan! I love old barns and buildings with character, but it’s often sad when they’re in disrepair or no longer being used. I hope they do something with the former train station. It’s a cool building.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. The train station here in town (the one under the tarps) is being restored. It has taken years, and the First Selectman (like mayor) who championed that project lost his re election bid last November. I hope the project is far enough along so as to have momentum to carry it forward. It’s so close to being useful again.

    Like

    Reply

    • And perhaps a few people hiding out in one of those buildings ;-)

      I always like finding odd buildings, like the one Faith found, in the middle of nowhere. It does make your imagination perk up.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. Those barns are beauties. I used to love when you would post photos during tobacco season. I’d never seen anything like that before, so was fascinated. Your second photo–that looks like it might have been a hardware store…all I could imagine was living in the apartment above it. Great photos today, Dan.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I used to love riding between those fields, Lois. It was like smoking a cigar without the ill effects. It smelled so good. All gone :( I did think that building had been a hardware store. Great minds ;-)

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  15. I too love seeing those old advertisements on the sides of barns but old barns make me sad. They’re good for the imagination but like Rivergirl, the possibility of yet another small farm going under is heartbreaking.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  18. I love old buildings. They speak to me of better times and make me hopeful for the future. Especially old churches at old train stations. I have seen some magnificent renovations done to both. Places I could live.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • The train station under the tarps is in our little town. I hope the new administration will complete the job. The previous guy was a champion for the train station. I don’t see much happening since he lost hos seat. I hope the new guy isn’t that petty.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  19. Look, the last barn has a bell tower too – or so it looks to me. Been gazing at old churches for too long.
    How interesting, I notice the symbology of you presenting these old barns on the 13th of the month. I’m not a superstitious person, but 13 has been unlucky for many folk throughout history.
    Great shots, Dan. I always wondered how it would be like to take an old barn, recondition it, and live in it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  22. Beautiful photos, Dan. I can imagine the life that once characterized those sites. Amazing. BTW, I have a special love for old barns — maybe because I grew up on a farm. 😊

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  24. I have to laugh at one of my good buddies who practically drools when he sees broken-down buildings. He will go to the owner and offer to take the structures down in exchange for the wood. Many people say yes.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • A group took two tobacco barns down that were on the property of a Honda distribution center. They restored the land to greenfield condition in exchange for the wood. Barn boards with decades of tobacco scent infused.

      Unfortunately, when Amazon decided to build a warehouse on the former tobacco fields across the highway from Honda, they were in too much of a hurry. They bulldozed 14 barns and carted the material away in dumpsters. They put up a fence and No Trespassing signs around the mounds of shattered boards.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  29. Some really good shots today, Dan. I don’t like to see anything fall apart, of course, even though dilapidated buildings do have a kind of strange appeal. And like you, I like those old, faded ads on buildings, though I suspect it’s because of their vintage; I probably wouldn’t have liked these proto-billboards back in the day.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I know what you mean about the ads, Paul. Still, I always enjoy seeing the Chock Full O’Nuts when I step out of Penn Station in New York.

      I hope some of these places can find new life and get the attention they deserve.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  33. That photo of the barn in the snow is awesome! Maybe it’s this last week of being broiled by Mother Nature, but that image is one I want to look at for a long time. All of these old buildings really seem to ask us to spend a while looking at them. Barns make a very commanding presence in a field, and these older ones seem almost ancestral to me. I have dim memories of such barns, especially with tobacco, from visits to Mom’s family when I was a kid. This was a great photo challenge!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I have been hooked by Cee’s challenge. For the past few years, I’ve skipped a Monday post, in favor of sharing only photos. Cee makes that easy to organize. I love the barns, but so many have been torn down here in the name of “progress” – yuck.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Add your thoughts or join the discussion. One relevant link is OK, more require moderation. Markdown is supported.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.