BURN🔥 BEFORE BEAUTY 💐

Apparently, step one of figuring out what to do with the barn was... lighting a whole lot of stuff on fire.

So, we have a barn.

A cute little barn, actually may be a barn shed, but we are branding it as our barn 🤎.

From the outside. Cute (but will be cuter as we go..)

The inside?

FULL.. and well, NOT cute.

Old furniture. Wood. Random things. Things we could identify. Things we could not. Things we kept looking at and saying, “Do you think we could use this for something?”

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Because apparently when you start something like The Russell Grounds, you suddenly believe every thing could have potential. 😂

But before we could really start working on the barn — or honestly, much of the property — we needed to empty it.

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Which left us with two options:

Option A: Rent a junk bin.

Responsible. Efficient. Sensible.

Option B: Have a Burn Before Beauty party.

And, well...

Cavell is a country boy himself and we have been more than a little jealous watching our neighbours have some MASSIVE brush burns.

So obviously, Option B won!!

The morning started early, and we were splitting the weekend with Cavell also kicking off the 2026/2027 season training camp. So we were on a time crunch and I had a budget of "Cavell time".

We climbed up the ever-so-unsturdy stairs and started tossing items out the 2nd floor. Hoping they would break down to make the burn process easier. All the kids kicked in. Mali (our middle youngest... if that is how you say it with 4 kids) was in charge of removing all the screws from the furniture - can't say he loved that job, so we also let him toss a few drawers from the second floor. Soul (our oldest middle - lol) was sister-mommy to the actual baby, so I could do the declutter and dirty work in the barn.

The day was hot (but it did not prepare us for hot that fire later was going to be).

Finally when we had everything out, divided the keep vs burn, and took what was not safe to burn to the actual dump, we were ready to get started.

The country boy came home from work and the burn got started.

He grabbed the blow torch, we got a bottle of whiskey, dragged the old couch over.

Invited some people. (Because... GATHER. 😂)

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And then we lit that sh** on fire.

🔥🔥🔥

It was hot.

It was HUGE.

It was exciting!!!

Was this exactly how I pictured the first official Russell Grounds project going?

No.

Was sitting around a giant fire with friends, whiskey and an old couch somehow completely on brand?

Actually... yes.

And now?

The barn is empty.

The giant pile is gone.

And for the first time, we can actually stand back and start figuring out what we're working with.

SO... WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE BARN?

That's the next question.

Save it?

Fix it?

Rebuild parts of it?

Knock the whole thing down and start again?

We genuinely don't know yet.

We are going to be reaching out to some friends to walk through it with us, and help us figure it out.

And that's kind of the point of sharing this journey.

We're figuring it out as we go (with our friends).

But while we figure out what happens with our sweet little barn, we're moving on to a few projects we do know we can tackle.

Next up:

🌿 Cleaning up and discovering what's actually growing in these gardens.

🌿 Getting the little pergola by the fire ready for some themed mini-session ideas we've been dreaming about.

And probably finding several more things around here that need to be burned. 😂

Burn before beauty, apparently.

Welcome to The Russell Grounds.

We're just getting started. 🤎