Piecing together a beautiful friendship

Four years ago, when Denise Adams and her husband moved to a small neighborhood off Pines Road, she loved looking out of her windows to see a neighboring barn.

“Having previously lived on acreage and raised farm animals, I loved having a barn nearby and hearing the chickens,” she said.

While the classic beige barn and white barn offered a pastoral view, she envisioned a way to make it even lovelier.

“Every time I looked at that barn, I would imagine it with a brightly colored barn quilt,” Adams said.

A barn quilt isn’t made of fabric – it’s a large piece of wood painted to look like a quilt block. Adams is a quilter, but she also likes to work with wood.

“During COVID, I started doing more woodworking,” she said. “I built a sofa table, a set of bunk beds and other tables. I like making furniture.”

She had a large piece of plywood cut into sections and knew the 48-inch piece would be perfect for a barn quilt. But she didn’t know the barn’s owners and worried that they’d think her suggestion presumptuous.

Then she found a hole in the fence adjoining their properties. She and her husband fixed their side, but the patch kit instructed the patch to be applied to both sides. Now, she had a reason to meet the neighbors.

“With the help of another neighbor, I was introduced to Pat and Andrea Johns,” Adams said. “After talking about the patches, I got up the guts to talk about the barn, and how I would like to paint a barn quilt for their barn.”

The Johnses were delighted by her suggestion and Pat offered to hang the quilt when it was complete.

“We’ve lived here since 1979, but that barn has probably been here since 1941,” Pat Johns said.

The couple gave Adams free rein on color and design and she started work in August.

“I wanted multiple primary colors that would pop,” she said.

After priming the wood, she began painting.

“I started with one little red square in the center and worked out from there.”

She used exterior house paint that she mainly sourced from local recycling centers. If they didn’t have the color she had in mind, she mixed her own.

“I mixed the green because I liked the color of Frog Tape,” she said.

Adams also mixed multiple colors to create the textured look of wood grain against the red background. One of the yellows came from the paint she used on their front door. She overlapped some of the squares, which added an almost 3-D quality to the quilt.

“I painted every square twice,” she said. “I want it to last.”

Finally, she was ready to show the competed quilt to the Johnses.

“It was gorgeous!” Andrea Johns said. “She took such care with the design and it’s just the right size for the space. She did a fantastic job.”

On Sept. 11, the two couples invited their families for a “barn quilt raising” featuring barbecued burgers and fresh homegrown corn on the cob.

Before family members hung the barn quilt, they all signed the back of it with Sharpies.

Adams enjoys her enhanced barn view and the connection she’s made with her neighbors.

“Now every time I look out at the barn with its colorful barn quilt, I think how nice it looks, but I also think of the wonderful new friends we’ve found,” she said.