jwith68
Well-known member
This may not qualify as a garage in the strictest sense, but I'm going to show off this project a bit anyway. I've been following rieferman's "barn saving" thread and have enjoyed seeing the nice job he has done making an old barn into a useful workshop, garage, exercise room, etc. I'm doing the same type of thing here, but making an old barn built for loose hay and square bales into a barn useful for round bale storage, a cattle shed, and equipment/general storage.
My wife and I bought the family farm on my mom's side of the family from my grandmother in 1997, with the stipulation that she remain living here for as long as she was able to. She reached a point in 2002 (due to Alzheimer's disease and at the age of 92) that she had to go to a nursing home. We moved here that fall, and I have been working on the place ever since. This barn was the larger of 2 barns relatively near the house. This one is about 125 yards SW of the house. It was built by my great-grandfather in 1924 or 1925. It is a classic style of barn for this area, with a hip roof, full hayloft, a center feedway on the ground level, and stall space on either side. It is 30' x 40' x 15'-6" at the eaves.
Like most, it was built when loose hay was put up, but was later successfully used for square bales, when they came along in the early '50's or so. They are basically useless, though, for round bales. I thought for quite a while about what to do for extra equipment storage, and eventually round bale storage, and a better facility for cattle. Since this barn was in a good location, and structurally sound, I decided it could be all 3 with some work.
We began in summer 2007. The first step was to take off a lean-to shed put on the south end years ago. It was only 12' x 30', and only had a 8'-6" high door. We then built lean-to's around the east, south, and west sides, "hipped" at the corners. They were attached as high as possible, and used 20' 2x10's as rafters, so they extended out just over 19' with the ~2.5 pitch roof that we used. This increased the overall foot print of the barn to ~59' x 68'.
The east side will be the "cattle" side, so one bay was walled off, and the openings of the other bays were walled down to 9' clearance. A solid wall was extended south from the SE corner of the original barn to the new lean-to south wall, dividing the 19' x 59' cattle side from the rest of the lean-to's. The rest of the south side and the entire west side form an "L" shaped equipment storage area. They are fully enclosed, with a single sliding door on the south side, and a sliding door for each of four ~15' bays on the west side.
The next major step was started this summer - converting the original barn into a round bale barn. This involved replacing an entire end wall with large doors and removing the entire loft floor This is what the north end looked like when we started.
Since the loft floor structure and bracing adds a lot of stability to the structure of these old barns, we needed to add in substantial bracing to take it's place. We added 2x6 braces from the upper walls to the rafters every 4', and braced them into the top wall plate and the rafter tails. We also added collar ties that should have been there from when it was originally built. This photo is out of sequence, but it shows the added bracing and collar ties.
The next step was to span the entire north gable end at the bottom with a 1.75" x 14" x 30' LVL beam. It was lagged to the double plate and every stud in the gable end. The LVL rested on the original side wall double top plates, and on full height treated 6x6's we added lagged into the wall at each corner. Angle braces were put in from the side wall top plates to the LVL at about 12' out from each side to stablize the bottom edge of the gable from in-out movement. This is another out of sequence photo that shows the work on the inside of the north gable.
Once that work was done, we could start on the outside and doors. Since all the lean-to's were covered in new metal, I decided to recover the entire north end. We rented a Bil-Jax man lift for a weekend, and pulled all the old metal off. An in-progress photo:
I elected to keep the original roof overhang on the north end, including the little prow out over the area the original loose hay fork had come out years ago. We built new 2x4 frames and nailed/screwed them in place where the original roof purlins just extended out over the wall. There were old 1x fascia boards on them, but they were in sad shape. All this got wrapped with new metal, new 2x4 purlins were put on the gable end, and the whole thing was covered with new metal. We also used 2 panels of matching pattern polycarbonate to let some natural light in. Double door tracks and track cover was installed at the bottom. We then added in another 6x6 in the center, not so much for support, but the doors needed something to close to in the center. My FIL and I fabbed up door frames out of 1.5" x 2" steel tube, with 1.5" x 3" top bars. Here's the finished gable end with the center post, and the bare door frames hanging there. As you can see, the entire loft structure is still there.
The new big (173" x 177") sliders were covered in the same galvanized 5-rib metal. Next step was a biggie - take out the loft. The wife and I made a deal with a friend of ours that does horseshoeing, blacksmithing, and beautiful rustic furniture from wrought iron and all kinds of wood (including old barn wood!) for some tables in exchange for most of the wood from the barn loft. He and another friend removed ~90% of it in one day - and I don't envy them. Me and and one other guy removed the rest of it so the inside could be finished, and it was a hard, dirty job.
I'll finish the rest of this tomorrow, wrap this up for this evening. One more preview pic, of the finished product. Yes, still a little pile of old lumber to clean up.
My wife and I bought the family farm on my mom's side of the family from my grandmother in 1997, with the stipulation that she remain living here for as long as she was able to. She reached a point in 2002 (due to Alzheimer's disease and at the age of 92) that she had to go to a nursing home. We moved here that fall, and I have been working on the place ever since. This barn was the larger of 2 barns relatively near the house. This one is about 125 yards SW of the house. It was built by my great-grandfather in 1924 or 1925. It is a classic style of barn for this area, with a hip roof, full hayloft, a center feedway on the ground level, and stall space on either side. It is 30' x 40' x 15'-6" at the eaves.
Like most, it was built when loose hay was put up, but was later successfully used for square bales, when they came along in the early '50's or so. They are basically useless, though, for round bales. I thought for quite a while about what to do for extra equipment storage, and eventually round bale storage, and a better facility for cattle. Since this barn was in a good location, and structurally sound, I decided it could be all 3 with some work.
We began in summer 2007. The first step was to take off a lean-to shed put on the south end years ago. It was only 12' x 30', and only had a 8'-6" high door. We then built lean-to's around the east, south, and west sides, "hipped" at the corners. They were attached as high as possible, and used 20' 2x10's as rafters, so they extended out just over 19' with the ~2.5 pitch roof that we used. This increased the overall foot print of the barn to ~59' x 68'.
The east side will be the "cattle" side, so one bay was walled off, and the openings of the other bays were walled down to 9' clearance. A solid wall was extended south from the SE corner of the original barn to the new lean-to south wall, dividing the 19' x 59' cattle side from the rest of the lean-to's. The rest of the south side and the entire west side form an "L" shaped equipment storage area. They are fully enclosed, with a single sliding door on the south side, and a sliding door for each of four ~15' bays on the west side.
The next major step was started this summer - converting the original barn into a round bale barn. This involved replacing an entire end wall with large doors and removing the entire loft floor This is what the north end looked like when we started.
Since the loft floor structure and bracing adds a lot of stability to the structure of these old barns, we needed to add in substantial bracing to take it's place. We added 2x6 braces from the upper walls to the rafters every 4', and braced them into the top wall plate and the rafter tails. We also added collar ties that should have been there from when it was originally built. This photo is out of sequence, but it shows the added bracing and collar ties.
The next step was to span the entire north gable end at the bottom with a 1.75" x 14" x 30' LVL beam. It was lagged to the double plate and every stud in the gable end. The LVL rested on the original side wall double top plates, and on full height treated 6x6's we added lagged into the wall at each corner. Angle braces were put in from the side wall top plates to the LVL at about 12' out from each side to stablize the bottom edge of the gable from in-out movement. This is another out of sequence photo that shows the work on the inside of the north gable.
Once that work was done, we could start on the outside and doors. Since all the lean-to's were covered in new metal, I decided to recover the entire north end. We rented a Bil-Jax man lift for a weekend, and pulled all the old metal off. An in-progress photo:
I elected to keep the original roof overhang on the north end, including the little prow out over the area the original loose hay fork had come out years ago. We built new 2x4 frames and nailed/screwed them in place where the original roof purlins just extended out over the wall. There were old 1x fascia boards on them, but they were in sad shape. All this got wrapped with new metal, new 2x4 purlins were put on the gable end, and the whole thing was covered with new metal. We also used 2 panels of matching pattern polycarbonate to let some natural light in. Double door tracks and track cover was installed at the bottom. We then added in another 6x6 in the center, not so much for support, but the doors needed something to close to in the center. My FIL and I fabbed up door frames out of 1.5" x 2" steel tube, with 1.5" x 3" top bars. Here's the finished gable end with the center post, and the bare door frames hanging there. As you can see, the entire loft structure is still there.
The new big (173" x 177") sliders were covered in the same galvanized 5-rib metal. Next step was a biggie - take out the loft. The wife and I made a deal with a friend of ours that does horseshoeing, blacksmithing, and beautiful rustic furniture from wrought iron and all kinds of wood (including old barn wood!) for some tables in exchange for most of the wood from the barn loft. He and another friend removed ~90% of it in one day - and I don't envy them. Me and and one other guy removed the rest of it so the inside could be finished, and it was a hard, dirty job.
I'll finish the rest of this tomorrow, wrap this up for this evening. One more preview pic, of the finished product. Yes, still a little pile of old lumber to clean up.
That's a BIG building you have there!
