Old barns... mine is almost done... extreme makeover, barn edition

[tidy rabbit]

Hi all,

Well today I find myself very muscle sore and tired, and a little bummed that I still have more of this back breaking work ahead of me today, but I'm really happy with the result.

My old bank barn is almost done. We've got a few more things to do, finish the staining and put up the bars between the stalls.

We have another barn that is actually going to be the modern barn with all the bells and whistles, but I think this old bank barn will always be my favorite. :) It has 3 12x16 stalls and 1 16x16. It stays very cool in the summer and pretty warm in the winter.

Here's what we started with:
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/1176931578048495570rZeuKr
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/1176966162048495570ZOWRkD
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/1176966194048495570lbOpWM

Here's a couple pictures I took last night. We've still got a lot to do, but it's finally getting there!
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2802180910048495570hBcrun
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2212606360048495570pUcPxk

Let's see your remodels!

[MistyBlue]

Awesome job Tidy!!! I love old bank barns! :yes:

[pony grandma]

I love big old solid barns like that! They feel cozy to me. And I favor the extra size on the stalls, easier to keep clean and the horses like them too. enjoy!! I'm happy for you!

[tidy rabbit]

Thanks you guys, it's only taken us 4 years! LOL.

[Angela Freda]

OMG I am so jealous!

What a great barn!

[Quinn]

Beautiful barn and so worth the effort.

http://community.webshots.com/user/ballyduff

[TheOtherHorse]

Wow, it looks great! I love old converted barns.

[HuntJumpSC]

Your "new" barn looks snug, solid and cozy! Love it! :)

[gabz]

WOW. you've done way more work than I have. I left the "trees" that support the upper floors and the entire barn. Raw-hewn beams and thick tree columns, etc. Some still have the bark on them with white wash over the bark!! Even the narrow, t&g wood siding is nailed to half logs.

I had a round roof that was like a swaybacked horse and it had dropped down over the the interior ladders and punched holes in the roof. In Feb 2007, I hired the Amish to install 6:12 trusses every 2 feet, add OSB, and then remove the roof. ONce that was done, green steel and a center ridge skylight went on. I still have 2 HUGE stories in the upper part and 7' ceilings in the downstairs.

I also had the cow stanchions (only 8) removed but I can't open all of mine up until I take out the cement partial wall and level the cement where the cows stood above their manure trench. I JUST got a water line (and electric wire - still to be connected) to the barn. I only have 2 lightbulbs at this time (1 upstairs and 1 down) in my 55'x36' bank barn. Thick rock walls like your's.

My boys use the barn as a run-in. I have a large 12x12 stand-alone stall that divides one section - so I have a goat area and 2 "stalls" if necessary. I still have the old Draft Horse Team stalls - 2 BIG standing stalls for the Drafties, with monster hooks behind for their collars. Wood slatted hay manger with the drops from the upper floor, and sliding doors to the grain bins. : )

Great work on your's it looks wonderful. Is that hard packed dirt or concrete? Love the stalls... very nice!!! It is a lot of work... I wish I were able to do more of mine... but now with the structure sound... I can do work on the interior.

[subk]

We just finished building my "old barn." We built it with 8x8 and 8x12 oak timbers and we hope in a hundred years someone will love it because it's their old barn. It should still be around!

[pony grandma]

I'm sorry I can't help but chuckle :lol: What do city people have to talk about???

I love admiring your barn!

[tidy rabbit]

Great work on your's it looks wonderful. Is that hard packed dirt or concrete? Love the stalls... very nice!!!

The floor is packed limestone screenings, almost 20 tons of it. Its so hard I can sweep it. :) I think the trick to keeping it hard will be to make sure I water it every day.

Here's the final results....

http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2344226330048495570nGZzxs
http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2466946040048495570BMbhZo

[tidy rabbit]

I'm sorry I can't help but chuckle :lol: What do city people have to talk about???

I love admiring your barn!

City folk? I have no idea! :)

[gabz]

http://s456.photobucket.com/albums/qq288/horsebumz/barn/?albumview=slideshow

I'm not sure if this will work, but here's some photos of "my" old barn.
As you can see - it's no where NEAR a work of art like Tidy Rabbit's... I"ve been too busy fixing the structural!!

[MistyBlue]

Love the new roof Gabz....good Lordy your barn is HUGE! That's gonna take some time to refinish the whole thing but it'll be worth it!

[tidy rabbit]

gabz, that's wonderful old barn! I love seeing people restore these old barns, their so wonderful and it is very sad when people just let them fall down.

[gabz]

Technically, I'm not restoring it, but rehabbing it since I couldn't replace the original round roof - which still had cedar shingles on it beneath 2 layers of asphalt ones... that's what contributed to it's demise... all that weight and soaking rain... the first year I pulled the barn back together with thick cables and come-alongs and tried to cover the roof... I rented a 42' boom lift and we couldn't reach the peak!!! We tar papered about 2/3 of the west side of the roof where there was a huge hole and I put those pipe/tarp garages up INSIDE the barn to protect the hay! LOL...
I tarped all the upper floors and made drain holes/ pipes.. but much of the flooring is pretty weak from the previous years of roof leaks.

Yes, it is a VERY huge barn. Repairing it is MUCH cheaper than building new - since you have to figure 3 stories of 36 x 50... Repairing means no increase in taxes.

I like Tidy Rabbit's floor. That's a definite possibility for me as I have concrete... so taking much of the concrete and putting packed limestone in, is a great idea... (I have 1 dozen 3/4" stall mats in various areas right now.) I have packed limestone outside the 2 doorways - it's a wonderful thing!!

I'm having the Amish come back (they did my roof and gutters) and help me configure the NE corner - redoing the door that's there and fixing up the old draft stalls. The crews that I've used are just great folks - even if they DO run up my electric bill with all their rechargeable drill drivers!! :winkgrin:
ONe of the Amish guys took the hay trolley for his old barn, and there was a small milking stool with a star cut out of the middle that the main contractor "bought" for one of his daughters (who I"ve met and she LOVES LOVES LOVES horses!! loL) ..many old things in that barn...

[chai]

I love those embankment barns, too. They are so cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Great job!

[SunnySideUp]

Ahhh so beautiful, Tidy and Gabz. Your barns make today's poll barns seem so....hollow....

[pony grandma]

Ahhh so beautiful, Tidy and Gabz. Your barns make today's poll barns seem so....hollow....

"hollow" - exactly the right word! Don't you just love those old timber beams.

T.G. some people are on this planet to save some things. I have seen so many subdividers (rapers and scrapers I call them) tear down these treasures when they could refurbish them into something very tasty and artful. My humble post war community growing up turned an old dairy barn into a community center, and they turned the old farmhouse into the offices for the local parks district, the fields into baseball diamonds, a walking path across one of the fields for the school children to "walk" to the elementary school the old-fashioned way (and across a lovely field), the old orchard is still there as a park and one of the parking lots gets turned into an outdoor skating rink every winter with the old tractor shed turned into a warming house for the skaters. It actually still looks like a farm.

[Hilary]

Wow, these are great barns - we redid the front half of our barn about a year ago - it's built into a bank, but the "cellar" is open and unfinished. It's a giant run -in which we now have curtained off for the winter.

We had someone straighten it as much as possible without taking off the sheathing, and then redid the floor (original from 1865) and the stalls. It's too big for what I need at 100 feet long, although we do fill the low lofts every year with hay.

While it's a shame you couldn't salvage the curved shape of that barn, sometimes you have to compromise with what you can afford - better to save the rest of the barn -thank you for sharing your photos.

[Tom King]

I don't impress easily. I'm a retired builder and now considered an expert on restoration of historic structures (at least people want my opinion and pay for it so they think so)

I'm very impressed. "Good Job" to both tr and gabz.

[tidy rabbit]

I don't impress easily. I'm a retired builder and now considered an expert on restoration of historic structures (at least people want my opinion and pay for it so they think so)

I'm very impressed. "Good Job" to both tr and gabz.

Thanks Tom! It's really my husband who makes it all work, I tell him what I would like and then he does it well beyond my expectations, and I do all the grunt work. I am the grunt and the go-fer.

[MistyBlue]

I would imagine rehabbing that barrel roof would have cost a bloody fortune *if* you could have found someone who could do it.

Hilary...betcha you'll find more than enough uses for 100' barn. :winkgrin: I have 4.5 acres and two horses and something tells me if I had a 100' barn it would take me less than a year to use every square foot of it, LOL!

[kearleydk]

How did I miss this thread?

I'm bone tired and sore from yet another day on my barn project. Today we got the stall fronts up but now I have to do much woodwork to fill in the bottom panels.

I'm using full 2" pine that we milled on the property. Full 2" by full 12" is a hefty thing to put through the planer but sure is massive and beautiful when in place.

My barn was a church which I disassembled and moved to my farm. Even though the thing was down and moved in three weeks and then back up and roofed in another 6 the finish and interior work is now over two years.

Couple of photos here:http://www.robrick.com/dimar_caspians/photos/index.asp?ref=18&cat=6

I'm bad about taking photos as I go.

Dick

[tidy rabbit]

Wow! It's beautiful. Take some updated pictures!!!

We milled the wood for our stall fronts too. Right off my inlaws farm in TN. It really is a labor of love when you do all this stuff yourself.

The interior walls of the stalls are built like a house wall, two sided with framing in the middle, and the boards are solid 100 year old oak, we reused what was already in the barn. Damn horses will never - ever kick through one of those boards. :)

[IveGotRhythm]

couple of photos here:http://www.robrick.com/dimar_caspians/photos/index.asp?ref=18&cat=6

I'm bad about taking photos as I go.

Dick


Oh holy mother of god, that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!!

PLEASE post photos when you are done!!!

TR and GABZ...I can't tell you how envious I am. Not only are your barns beautiful and functional but you now own a piece of history...sigh...

We have been looking at horse property for the last 7 months and I just MELT over barns like yours...

unfortunately my opinion is outweighed by the men in the family who like cool, new, insulated/ventilated/heated/hot-and-cold water blah blah blah...

SIGH....at least I can look at yours and dream...

[tidy rabbit]

unfortunately my opinion is outweighed by the men in the family who like cool, new, insulated/ventilated/heated/hot-and-cold water blah blah blah......

You'll find just the right place. It took us over a year to find our place and then we stumbled upon it by accident, I was lost and drove past it. It was for sale by owner and if I had blinked I would have missed the sign buried in the weeds.

Our other barn which we're just starting on is going to be the modern barn. It's an OLD tabacco barn, probably 100 years old. We're going to strip it down to the frame. I believe it's 30' x 90'.

It's going to have a laundry room and a full bathroom and insulation and quite possibly heat, (what a concept) and a big tack room, which is going to be our apartment while the house is remodeled. I wonder if I'll still love the old bank barn as much when the new barn is all done? I think I will. It's a very special old thing.

[Curley07]

Here's our latest reno (I don't think I'[ve pictured the final work, but it does show some of the work getting there).

Barn construced pre 1900's, had been converted for pigs (filled 2+ feet + piping for water + second concrete floor) in the early 70's, then abandoned until last year. We gutted, rewired (the wiring was impossible to figure out!!!) replaced beams, foxed roof, opened/made doors, windows, got the old well going etc etc etc etc.

There's more work to do, but love love love the barn. This is our second reno ... our first was more like the OP's barn (with laminate beams etc, it was a barn that burnt in the early 60's and was rebuilt over the original stone foundation) ... if we hadn't tackled the first one successfully, we would never have attempted the next! :). Although the jury's still out on whether we should have just built new ... I really love seeing the old barns getting new life breathed into them.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14288&id=737969749

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14292&id=737969749

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15683&id=737969749

[Bugs-n-Frodo]

Tidy, I love your place. Keep taking pics. I would love to see it when it is finished... everything from the ring to the barns and even the house. I love renovations and before and after pics! I am addicted to HGTV though I have never renovated anything myself, YET. What a GREAT piece if land!

[goodmorning]

All of your barns are lovely, and this thread has me quite sad :yes: I have a lovely old farm in the family; with gorgeous old barns, just begging to be rehabbed. At one point in time, my grandfather was going to finally hire an engineer to do some work on the large barn, the framework needs to be reinforced & leveled. We hired the architecht, got the permit, and then he decided he'd rather buy a boat :eek: The old farm was not worth it....makes me soo sad when I see your gorgeous barns. I have one of the few properties is suburban MA...and while its trusted into the family for many years...I'd almost rather see someone put it to use & restore it. My Nanna who lived here & kept it up can't be too thrilled...it's been in the family for 90 years....

But of course we have two huge ugly greenhouses....sorry, a bit of a sore subject :no:

[gabz]

kearleydk!! THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!! Just gorgeous. I think my barn was a Sears catalog model. No where near the artistic architecture.

the "ribs" for my round roof were many, many layers of "2x4" wood. We had to burn much of it as I couldn't afford 3 -5 super-sized dumpsters it would have taken to haul it away. I had garbage cans full of heavy thick nails that made up the roof ribs. I am the owner of a 30" wide adjustable height magnet on wheels. Thankfully - there is a recycling center near me, so I had someone that could take the metal scraps and everything - there. The ashes from burning all that are spread into my fields.

There is a man in Hesperia, MI that rehabs old barns. I paid him to come evaluate mine when I first moved to the property. He was going to add purlins and ?? other supports to the existing interior roof structure and then put very thin steel over the curved roof. Cost: $24,000 + .

Then, I had an estimate for a new "pole barn" type barn. 1/3 the size with overhead door to drive in with hay, 2 stalls, 1 feed/tack room. $24,000 + excavating the site + removal of the old barn.

Then, a friend and I kept brainstorming and he suggested the trusses. We were going to piggy-back 2 sets to at least get the hip roof style - but my Amish contractor said that would be too much weight. Amish contractor (John) was excited about using the trusses - he had never done one like that. So, another friend works for a truss company and VOILA.. buying 26 trusses in the winter in snow country... was fairly cheap. Then the OSB and miscellaneous wood from Home Depot (12 months - same as cash! LOL) and the steel from John... I did help with installing the trusses... we used the old hay trolley and track. One of the workers clambored up to the peak and oiled up the trolley and ran a tree worker's rope through the pulley, then we tied the rope to the center peak of each truss. The youngest worker (John JR - about 14) would jump from a cross member holding the rope and that would pull the peak of the truss up, sideways so that it was pointing up. Then together, he and I pulled the truss up to the beams. He only weighed about 85 pounds!! Sometimes when he "jumped" he would go back up - which is when I grabbed hold of his legs and pulled him back down. :lol: Thankfully - the Amish men accepted this.

I also got to help do cleanup, and more cleanup, and hoisting tools up etc.

Well... little steps...just like training a horse. The interior will be this winter's project - when my Amish builders are more available.

There are Barn Restoration projects that help fund some restorations. But the restoration has to be used as a business entity. : ( I researched for at least 2 years trying to find help.
Good Luck to all of you. Bank barns are the best. plus, I have sloped areas to help with drainage and my gutters go to downspouts that go into water tanks!