Working on 1800's barn

[AlexR 722]

I bought my property 4 years ago and have been focusing on the house and other projects. But it's time for me to start working on the barn. 

This is a 1800's beam bank barn. It's approximately 35x65' in the main part. My first focus is going to be replacing the main barn floor. 

 

The outside definitely needs work as well, my long term plan is to get the outside metal but leave the wood siding on and just furr out the metal so the inside still looks original. There are plenty of areas I need to replace the wood as well as get it painted before doing metal. 

 

 

This is the "lean-to" off the side of the barn with a milk room is my current area that I work on the wheelhorses which is not the most ideal but it works for now.

 

 

Here is the bottom of the barn along with a bunch of lumber that is going to be used as the floor. 

 

 

Planning on putting a stairway here between the bottom of the barn and the main floor.

 

And finally the inside 

 

 

 

 

And here is the lumber I will be using to replace the floor, I got a deal on it from my work. They are 2x10's and a bit over 13' long

 

 

 

First thing I need to work on is clearing out the main floor of all the stuff.

And then in a 1/3 of the barn there is a 2-3" layer of concrete I need to remove, and then the entire floor needs to come up. There are a few floor beams I need to replace and reinforce and I want to get the floor somewhat leveled out as well. 

[oliver2-44 9,848]

Quite a project. We don’t find old barns like that in Texas. 

[Sparky-(Admin) 21,400]

Awesome barn! 
  The whole time reading your post all I kept thinking was “how much stuff I could store in there!” 

[ri702bill 8,481]

Or go 3-dimensional like @pullstart did hanging tractors off the rafters......

[AlexR 722]

1 minute ago, Sparky said:

Awesome barn! 
  The whole time reading your post all I kept thinking was “how much stuff I could store in there!” 

I definitely will use it to store some stuff. Needs to be closed up a bit more to store some stuff, as it keeps water out just fine. But during the winter I have some snow that blows in, through all the spots you can see light shining though haha. 

[AlexR 722]

Just now, ri702bill said:

Or go 3-dimensional like @pullstart did hanging tractors off the rafters......

I do have a block and pulley system that I need to free up but it runs on a rail at the peak of the barn all the way from one side to the other. 

[tunahead72 2,428]

Oh man, I love these old timber frame barns, I'll be watching! 

 

[Beap52 858]

What a great old barn you have.  It looks like it's stands good and is structurally in sound shape.  I like old barns.  

 

I was fortunate to work on one built in the 1880's  It had "1880" in the gable end that the owner asked me to replicate so he could have the original for display in his home.  At that time I had a Ford van that was  my work vehicle with ladder rack on top. In order to paint the gable and be able to reach the "1880" when replacing it,  I set my longest wooden extension ladder on the ladder rack on top of the van.  It made for quite a shaky ladder!  That barn was struck by lightening a few years later and burned down.

 

Another time we renailed and painted a galvanized metal roof on a barn.  I used my fishing pole to cast a line across the ridge then drug ropes that we tied to  the trailer hitch on my El Camino to tie around our waists while on that steep roof.  

 

40 years ago when we painted barns, when we had one that the paint was gone or nearly gone, we would "prime" with linseed oil.  Let it dry a few weeks then come in and prime and topcoat.  The reason the man I worked for used linseed oil was to restore the oil in the wood.  He claimed if you applied primer, the dry wood would absorb the oil out  of the primer and leave the pigment on the surface. 

 

What memories seeing your barn brought back.  Looking forward to following your progress.

[AlexR 722]

13 minutes ago, Beap52 said:

What a great old barn you have.  It looks like it's stands good and is structurally in sound shape.  I like old barns.  

 

I was fortunate to work on one built in the 1880's  It had "1880" in the gable end that the owner asked me to replicate so he could have the original for display in his home.  At that time I had a Ford van that was  my work vehicle with ladder rack on top. In order to paint the gable and be able to reach the "1880" when replacing it,  I set my longest wooden extension ladder on the ladder rack on top of the van.  It made for quite a shaky ladder!  That barn was struck by lightening a few years later and burned down.

 

Another time we renailed and painted a galvanized metal roof on a barn.  I used my fishing pole to cast a line across the ridge then drug ropes that we tied to  the trailer hitch on my El Camino to tie around our waists while on that steep roof.  

 

40 years ago when we painted barns, when we had one that the paint was gone or nearly gone, we would "prime" with linseed oil.  Let it dry a few weeks then come in and prime and topcoat.  The reason the man I worked for used linseed oil was to restore the oil in the wood.  He claimed if you applied primer, the dry wood would absorb the oil out  of the primer and leave the pigment on the surface. 

 

What memories seeing your barn brought back.  Looking forward to following your progress.

Thank you very much! 

It definitely has areas that are deteriorating, but it is not falling apart yet. 

My goal is to get it more useable and stop any deteriorating I can without breaking the bank.  

My roof definitely could use a repaint as well, I might pay someone to do that though. 

[peter lena 8,716]

 @ BEAP52  , scarry , linseed oil , is just what I was thinking about , dry wood  is a perfect object to , oil soak , watched a guy this summer  do a barn roof , and asked him if he was going to , mineral oil it ? what for he said ?  told him to have a good day , today that roof looks bone dry and split  curling everywhere , those hot summer days , with an oil soak , works wonders , but only if you do it . simple as it sounds , seen lubrication  save a lot of  stuff , beats powerdry  rust , or rot any day , pete  

[953 nut 55,739]

3 hours ago, AlexR said:

I do have a block and pulley system that I need to free up but it runs on a rail at the peak of the barn all the way from one side to the other. 

I am old enough to remember the hay trolley system being used to fill the haymow.    Looks like you have a very good barn to work with, looking forward to your progress.

 

[ebinmaine 68,223]

I love old barns. And new barns. All of em.  

Americana at its finest.  

That's why we built one instead of using other building shapes/layouts. 

 

 

There are hundreds of them up here. 

 

There's a book written by a fella that works at Maine Med where Trina does. Excellent read. 

I'll find the title for you.  

 

Very interesting project I'll be very much looking forward to seeing updates on.  

 

 

[AlexR 722]

I started working on it again the last few days for a bit. Still getting it cleaned up so haven't gotten to demo yet. 

 

This part is what I have to tackle first on demo is removing this "loft" area. I am planning on keeping the barn wide open at least at first but regardless this area is too low anyway. 

 

Getting these other areas cleaned up. 

 

 

[adsm08 2,172]

I wish I had a barn like that.

 

They are just cool.

[ebinmaine 68,223]

9 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

I wish I had a barn like that.

 

They are just cool.

Absolutely agreed.  

Old barns are amazing.  

[adsm08 2,172]

7 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

Absolutely agreed.  

Old barns are amazing.  

 

Some friends of the family own a farm with a barn like that. I would love to buy the farm, but I doubt it will ever happen. I'd even be willing to do a "let me buy this, but you can live here until you are ready to move out", but fair market value for the property is 3x what I could ever afford, and I don't want any part of it if I can't buy the whole thing.

[AlexR 722]

2 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

 

Some friends of the family own a farm with a barn like that. I would love to buy the farm, but I doubt it will ever happen. I'd even be willing to do a "let me buy this, but you can live here until you are ready to move out", but fair market value for the property is 3x what I could ever afford, and I don't want any part of it if I can't buy the whole thing.

I only have a 3 acre property, but I bought it 4 years ago and the prices since then have gone nuts. I could sell it for twice what I bought it for but I have done a fair bit of work to the house.

 

Things have gotten to a point, I don't know how people can afford properties anymore. 

[SylvanLakeWH 25,895]

Nice! 

 

Beautiful set up you got there... and a great plan of attack!!!

[adsm08 2,172]

47 minutes ago, AlexR said:

I only have a 3 acre property, but I bought it 4 years ago and the prices since then have gone nuts. I could sell it for twice what I bought it for but I have done a fair bit of work to the house.

 

Things have gotten to a point, I don't know how people can afford properties anymore. 

 

 

Same.

 

I wish I'd been smarter about some of those things when I was younger. One of the first places the wife and I looked at years ago was wonderful. The house left something to be desired but the overall property would have been terrific, but it was in the 99.5% of our price range and we did want to be house poor.

 

Thing is, it was 75 acres of mostly woods. I didn't know it at the time, but I could probably have timbered off a good bit of it and gotten enough to leave us with a reasonable mortgage.

[Handy Don 12,436]

35 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

Thing is, it was 75 acres of mostly woods. I didn't know it at the time, but I could probably have timbered off a good bit of it and gotten enough to leave us with a reasonable mortgage.

20-20 hindsight. 

It works the other way too. When is the right time to sell and move on from a place that’s affordable, comfortable, has great memories, and so on.

[adsm08 2,172]

Just now, Handy Don said:

20-20 hindsight. 

It works the other way too. When is the right time to sell and move on from a place that’s affordable, comfortable, has great memories, and so on.

 

Right. In the case of that property, it had been an estrus farm, they guy's wife had died recently, he had advanced joint issues from Lyme, and was caring for his mother still, in the next town over. He wanted to sell to get the money out of the place and move closer to his mom.

 

In my current situation I'm not planning on moving. In fact I just talked to the neighbor who does construction today about getting a quote for the garage I want to put up.

[953 nut 55,739]

13 hours ago, AlexR said:

I could sell it for twice what I bought it for

This is the dilemma that many baby boomers are facing. If you sell your home at today's inflated prices you will have to have someplace to move to and it will be overpriced too. When we moved from Florida twenty years ago the real-estate boom was in full swing and we got three times what we had paid for our house fifteen years earlier. I heard from our former neighbors that the house resold for more than double what we had sold it for.

The price of building materials and labor has gone so high that most people won't be able to buy a fixer-upper when they are twenty something like many of us now senior citizens did. I fear that today's twenty somethings won't be able to afford any type of home unless they receive a substantial inheritance. I had always wanted to live in a high priced neighborhood and thanks to inflation I do now.

Like @Handy Don said, you are building memories with every board you replace and every stroke of a paint brush. My wife and I did a substantial amount of the work that went into building our home and incorporated features designed to allow :aging in place" so we will be able to live here safely and comfortably for as long as God allows us to live.

[adsm08 2,172]

9 hours ago, 953 nut said:

This is the dilemma that many baby boomers are facing. If you sell your home at today's inflated prices you will have to have someplace to move to and it will be overpriced too. When we moved from Florida twenty years ago the real-estate boom was in full swing and we got three times what we had paid for our house fifteen years earlier. I heard from our former neighbors that the house resold for more than double what we had sold it for.

The price of building materials and labor has gone so high that most people won't be able to buy a fixer-upper when they are twenty something like many of us now senior citizens did. I fear that today's twenty somethings won't be able to afford any type of home unless they receive a substantial inheritance. I had always wanted to live in a high priced neighborhood and thanks to inflation I do now.

Like @Handy Don said, you are building memories with every board you replace and every stroke of a paint brush. My wife and I did a substantial amount of the work that went into building our home and incorporated features designed to allow :aging in place" so we will be able to live here safely and comfortably for as long as God allows us to live.

 

 

Add to that the fact that fewer and fewer builders want to build 'starter homes' because the profit on the fully-loaded delux HOA jobbies is much higher.

[953 nut 55,739]

35 minutes ago, adsm08 said:

 

 

Add to that the fact that fewer and fewer builders want to build 'starter homes' because the profit on the fully-loaded delux HOA jobbies is much higher.

Can't lay all of the blame on the builder/developer. Most county/city building permits include hefty "impact fees" on new construction regardless of the size. Here in North Carolina the impact fee is typically $ 3,000 or more depending on the community and in rapid growth areas fees of $ 10,000 to $ 30,000 are typical.

Then there is the cost of a well and septic (or water line and sewer hook-up) that will cost three times the price my first house. Now add in a paved driveway (required in many communities) and landscaping etc. and you are going to shell out a small fortune before the first shovel full of dirt has been moved. Half of the price of a starter home would be the required outlays that have nothing to do with the size of the house.

I volunteered with Habitat for Humanities for several years and we managed to bring the per square foot cost down to $ 70 to $ 80 compared to the going $ 100 rate but now there are no takers for the simple starter home because the cost has risen to $ 180 per square foot with all of the labor being donated. 

Per square foot prices for all houses including new ones and fixer-uppers ranges from over $ 400 to a bit under $ 200 depending on the state. A dozen years ago the rule of thumb was $ 100 a square foot but inflation has taken its toll.

Even bringing in a doublewide mobile home will trigger all of the other fees and requirements making it prohibitively expensive.

[AlexR 722]

11 hours ago, 953 nut said:

This is the dilemma that many baby boomers are facing. If you sell your home at today's inflated prices you will have to have someplace to move to and it will be overpriced too. When we moved from Florida twenty years ago the real-estate boom was in full swing and we got three times what we had paid for our house fifteen years earlier. I heard from our former neighbors that the house resold for more than double what we had sold it for.

The price of building materials and labor has gone so high that most people won't be able to buy a fixer-upper when they are twenty something like many of us now senior citizens did. I fear that today's twenty somethings won't be able to afford any type of home unless they receive a substantial inheritance. I had always wanted to live in a high priced neighborhood and thanks to inflation I do now.

Like @Handy Don said, you are building memories with every board you replace and every stroke of a paint brush. My wife and I did a substantial amount of the work that went into building our home and incorporated features designed to allow :aging in place" so we will be able to live here safely and comfortably for as long as God allows us to live.

I am one of those twenty somethings lol well I just turned 30. The only thing on my house that I paid someone to do was the roof.

 

I have replaced all the carpet and flooring in the house, and ran new PEX water lines.

Dug out my crawlspace area 12'x30' area because it was only 6" from the dirt to the floor joists. Dug it out  to about 24" clearance with a small shovel into 3 gallon buckets to get it out of the crawlspace, then into a trailer for the wheelhorse to do some work for me there lol 

 

I also installed a new furnace and added a AC unit (only had a furnace originally) And ran some new ductwork for that (part of the reason I had to dig out the crawlspace area)

 

Then a big project I did was tear out my kitchen and dining room all the way down to bare studs and floor joists so new subfloor insulation and drywall. Repaired some minor structural issues from people messing with some openings through the years and added some barn beams in the openings. 

Built my own cabinets from bare stiles (that I got from habitat restore). And 4x8 panels for top sides and bottom of cabinets and built my own cabinets doors using a router table to cut the bevel and dado for the door panel. And made my countertops from 5x12 sheets of laminate. Also did the tile, trim, etc.

 

But I am pretty fortunate to be able to do all that myself, I have a interest in woodworking and my profession is a inspector for mainly modular housing which is built to residential code. So I have more knowledge in that area then most 20-30 year olds.