The Great Barn Restoration (Part 1)

This is our barn which was built in 1898.

What started as a ‘small barn clean out’ resulted in a major barn restoration project! Which is a very good thing as it would have been sad to have this historical landmark slide off the hill. At one point we had two tractors pulling walls and anchoring as we re-enforced with braces, beams, posts, etc. She should be good for another 100 + years.

This was called ‘Pen 1’, and a place where we put cows and calves during calving. But we are kicking the cows out and claiming this spot as our new Tack Room. (A Tack Room is a place that one keeps their tack in. i.e.: saddles, saddle pads, bridles, etc.) I assure you that we were very diligent about cleaning out the manure and disinfecting with lime but, I was SHOCKED at how deep this manure went before we hit a floor! It seemed like it had collected for a 100 years! After all 5 of our family dug for ages, we finally were satisfied with the depth and started to lay our new floor!

We then built a wall between where the cows will be in Pen 2, and our new tack room.

And we re-enforced the other walls. Another major part of the story is that we got all this wood at a farm auction we went to a couple weeks ago. Doug through a bid in on 8 slings (which is A LOT), and ended up coming home with 2X4’s, 6’s, 8’s and 10’s for super super reasonable.

If we had planned properly, we would have started in the loft, done that first and then headed down to the main floor. But we didn’t and after we got the tack room built, we headed up above to re-do that floor.

This is where our kids used to spend hours playing with their kittens. When we removed the 8″ of straw and duff and saw the condition the floor was in I made a not pleasant face as I pictured my kids leg poking through the floor!!