Barn Hay Fever

[HAY YOU]

Hi everybody I've been checking out all the garage projects & finally decided to show my never ending project we've been working on. We bought this old farmstead about 8 years ago, but only been working on are barn for 2 years. As with any old farm there is a lot of clean up involved. Roof leaking, holes in hay mound floor, no elect, 3 feet of hay still left in barn, etc, etc. Enjoy the pics.
Dave

 

[Mavawreck]

Re: Barn Hat Fever

That looks awesome. Where is it located?

 

[luvit]

Re: Barn Hat Fever

welcome to TGJ.
i love barns, and that's a beautiful roofline.
i had a large bank barn, but had to sell that property years ago so i could relocate for a long-term contract.

.

 

[scab]

Re: Barn Hat Fever

That's an aweseme looking barn. Guy around the corner from me just finished replacing every single exterior board on one that looked just like that, took him about a year and a half. Amazing project to drive by and see every day. Got any interior pics?

 

[HAY YOU]

Re: Barn Hat Fever

Thanks for the welcome we live in northen Indiana.

Here's some inside pics. These are pics from when we started cleaning to get a better idea of what needed to get fixed. You may wonder why we're trying to revive this old barn? Well we like old barns & since I'm semi-retired, I hope to put a small business in it & become fully retired one day only to spend every waking minute working for ourselves & wishing I still had a steady job.

 

[coljar]

Re: Barn Hat Fever

It's a nice barn and still in good shape which makes rescuing it from the elements a lot easier. What do you plan to do besides a small business? Car hobby barn, man cave??

 

[HAY YOU]

Already tore down & rebuilt the chicken coup into a very modest man cave, not even worthy of showing pictures of it on this site.

P.S. Couldn't make it to nice didn't want my mother-in-law to get any ideas.

 

[HAY YOU]

Well we thought it would be better if we put in a drive way/parking lot to better access the barn for delivery of building supplies. Pics show the start of excavation for are road way/ parking lot. Work is being done by me (old man) & my Lovely wife our two sons are to young & that rotted hay, dust & critter removal was deemed too hazardous for them. After removing 3 feet of old hay from the hay mound & cleaning downstairs (power washing). We started working on other areas waiting for the roofing crew to tear off & replace the roof. We kept busy deciding the new window placement & removal of the rotted sill plate & other repairs.

 

[Omphaloskeptic]

Wow, that roofing crew has got one big job ahead of them! Are you planning on replacing the decking material too? Here's hoping the roof is done before the snow flies. Good luck and welcome to the Garage Journal.

 

[domecreek]

Beautiful structure. Old Dairy Barn. Thank you for sharing.

 

[uniballer]

Very nice!! What kind of small business?

 

[JimVonBaden]

Very cool project!

Jim

 

[HAY YOU]

These were just pictures that we took for ourselves as we were going along. With the exception of the roofing contractor my wife and I have been the main labor source and we only work while the boys are in school. I was trying to put the pictures in a few at a time because I didn't want to take up to much space in the posting at a time. So, I figured I would go chronologically with picture but the roof has already been replaced & some siding also. It had one layer of shingles & one layer of wood shakes the whole roof was covered in plywood & shingled.

 

[HAY YOU]

Here is the inside pics. while the roof was opened, the floor is tongue & groove but was rotten in too many places to save. We took it up ,saved the good wood to be used later to cover the downstairs walls.

 

[akdiesel]

What a great looking place.

 

[ThreeJ97]

Wow... puts my old barn to shame, I am in nw Indiana. Can't wait to see more.

 

[HAY YOU]

Me and my boys after the roofers went home. We are thinking about the tourism potential since everybody likes to come in and see a barn and we're on a divided highway . Also my wife can move her gift shop from the downtown area back to the farm.. We'd like to capitalize on seasonal items...Christmas trees, Halloween, pumpkins we already do a corn maze, and we like to speculate on anything of value. We also live in NW Indiana.

 

[Mavawreck]

What a great place!

Let me put on my tinfoil hat for a second and say that for liabilities sake, it may be a good idea to either remove the pics where the roofers name is visible or take down the pics of yourselves on their ladders?

 

[NUTTSGT]

Looks like you have a huge work in progress going on. I think you have a great barn to start with.

 

[hmbemis]

.... for liabilities sake, it may be a good idea to either remove the pics where the roofers name is visible or take down the pics of yourselves on their ladders?

You got that backwards, see the ladders are an "attractive nuisance", just like the barn itself....


Nice barn, looking forward to updates

 

[luvit]

Hey you,
how many acres do you have there?

.

 

[L84ARACE]

That is an awesome structure. My ultimate dream project would be to turn an old barn into a house/ garage. Good luck, you have a great starting point.

 

[toytech40]

Great looking barn and good start to reworking it to a new workable life. Would love to find a barn like that to make into a hobby workshop/mancave/whatever space.

My sister and her husband took the old wooden grainery on their farm(similaer to a small grain elevator) and converted it into a workable 3 story space. the ground fllor is a photography studio for their daughter, the second level designed for livingroom/kitchen bathroom, and third level a loft type bedroom.

 

[Kevin54]

Already tore down & rebuilt the chicken coup into a very modest man cave, not even worthy of showing pictures of it on this site.

P.S. Couldn't make it to nice didn't want my mother-in-law to get any ideas.

I'm calling B.S. on that remark. That barn is as worthy as anythig to post up on here. I myself want to see more pics and I know others do to.

One thing you have to your advantage is great bones to the structure. That old barn is about one of the straightest I have seen in a long while.

What type of business are you going to put into it other than the wifes business? As large as that barn is, I bet you could rent out other spot for businesses if you would divide it up. A buddy of mine was talking about putting in a Beauty Shop and Nail Salon for his wife to run. He was telling me that a lot of women out in the country hate to have to run into town for something like that.

Anyways, post away with the pics

 

[horizontallyopposed]

Wow - someone after my own heart. I love old barns. Looking forward to the progress.

 

[carterbeauford]

As someone who lives in a converted, rather modern barn, I love seeing old barns restored. This Old House did a huge restoration on a barn in New England a few years ago, worth watching the episode.

OT but I have a good buddy from Chesterton, IN.

 

[HAY YOU]

We only have 5 acres, if the area ever gets commercialized, we'd like to surround ourselves with more of a buffer. Well here's some pics of the finished roof.

 

[NASMAN]

Big project that is looking very nice. Love barns, always great to see them being saved and made useful.

 

[Jweldie83]

No place like home! I'm in Indiana also.

 

[FunkyfullWidth]

More please... such an awesome space. Huge potential. It's a relief to see someone restoring it instead of tearing it down and putting a modern metal building or something... Not that I have anything against those, but you just can't beat old construction like this.

 

[HAY YOU]

Now that the roof has been taken care of. We got back to replacing the sill plate. At every window & door opening water leaked in and rotted the sill & vertical members. After measuring from the bottom of every upstairs floor joist & marking that measurement on the walls. We started putting up the false work to support the wall in 10 ft. sections at a time, we then cut out & replaced the rotted wood sill for a total of about 93 ft. Drilled and installed new anchor bolts all the way around. We removed the feeding collars for better access in moving around (later we will reinstall some of them).

 

[Kevin54]

What is up in th etower or whatever it is called on the left hand portion of the barn?

One other thing, I see where you call the area where the hay is stored, a "hay mound". I've always heard it called a "hay mow". Mound sounds like it would be more appropriate as hay is mounded up, but does anyone know for sure the exact terminology. But spelling aside, thats a cool *** place.

 

[HAY YOU]

Kevin54

That's the corn crib, corn is stored on the vented side. When dried it was then shucked & sent upstairs via 5" x 15'' hoppers attached to a chain conveyor (tower part)& dumped upstairs for storage. When needed or sold to the local grain elevator, you pulled in your grain truck & there's slots in the upstairs floors that open by a wooded slid hatch, gravity filled up your truck & off you went. I might have to take that building down & salvage the wood. The work involved in saving it out weights the practical use for it.
We found these old barn lights at an auction. I rewired them & hung 10 of them. So we can see what we're doing. So we started replacing the floor.

 

[m5hor]

wow your barn is really amazing. much work went into building that beast

 

[Bronson]

That is awesome! Glad You are saving it-if it was mine, I would be living in it, probably why I'm not married!
When was it built?

 

[HAY YOU]

So next we bought 52 sheets of 3/4" plywood & started replacing the floor. As I stated before the orig. tongue & groove was just too bad to use as a floor. We'll recycle it later to use as interior siding downstairs. Next year 2013 our Barn will be 100 years old.

 

[domecreek]

Your restoration is awesome. Thank you for these great photos.

 

[magnumleigh]

What a beautiful building. I swear your barn is bigger than my hometown! Do you guys realise how good you have it over there? Looking forward to reading more as the progress continues

 

[fergus]

Just awesome! Good on you for bringing this old building back to life. Subscribed.

 

[carhunter]

Does that style of barn architecture have a name?

Great project and I'll keep watching this thread.