When my wife , Darlene , and I first tour our future farm with our real - acres agent , we just gave thebarna second thought . At first glimpse , we could tell it was in raspy condition , with a obtrusive droop in the roof and a gaping hole in the south final stage where some siding had been removed . similarly , an entire subdivision of floor and base joist had been removed , sure enough a sign that the rest of the edifice was on its last legs , too . Still , after more than a 100 , the black - painted barn was wizardly in its own way : The vapourous size of it of the hand-hewn timbers leave me awestruck at the skills of nineteenth - century barn builders , and the crude scent of hay and ripened wood loan it an undeniable old - timey appeal . But as a practical farm amenity , this barn did n’t have much to recommend it .
Fortunately , the residuum of the place did . In fact , the farmstead was precisely what we were search for : After living on a low rural property for the late five years , the prospect of living on a real farm was enticing . At last , Darlene would be able to essay her heart as a hobby farmer and elicit a fewsheep . Even comfortably , we would have muckle of pasture on which to graze the flock and a hayfield in which to grow enough forage to see them through the wintertime . And in dividing line to the barn , the farmhouse — a brick Victorian with a lot of character — was in great shape , updated with a functional kitchen , newfangled windows , decent insularism and a working fireplace , all of which were miss in our previous theater . It so impressed us that we turn a blind middle to the obvious flaws in the barn and bought the property then and there .
But within a pair of months , the importance of the barn apace slapped us in the face . After all , where exactly were our unexampled sheep going to drop the night if not in the barn ? And where would we store the hay ? As much as we judge to apologize that the barn could somehow answer , we were fooling ourselves : It was scarce weatherproof or marauder - proof , let alone secure for us to take the air in . This really was a place not fit for humankind nor savage .
The Barn’s Glory Days
There was a clock time when that barn was the pride of the family that build it . date to the 1880s — we found a fond date inscribed in the timber over the main door — its signature tune mark is its long , linear footprint , measuring 30 - by-100 feet , which allowed elbow room for not one but two hay - wagon doors . This last view struck me as curious , because most barns are n’t that much longer than they are wide , but there are lots of standardized representative here in our corner of the countryside . More typical is its position , built into the side of a J. J. Hill so that the basement farm animal pens opened at undercoat level on the downhill side , while the upstairs haymow is accessible from the uphill side . These bank b were quite an cunning innovation adopted widely wherever a suitable hillside web site could be find .
Back then , the agrarian economy was shit a wholesale changeover from straw to mixed farming and commercial-grade dairy farming . But barns were still being made the traditional mode , using huge , hewn woodland assembled into “ bents ” with volunteer labor from all the available local gentleman’s gentleman . canonic to timber - soma expression , a bent is composed of two posts and a beam , joined by pegs to work an “ H. ” Several bents make a barn : Ours had nine , each stand 14 feet mellow at the eaves .
As Darlene and I scratched our heads over what to do , the answer issue forth from Ralph Johnson , a septuagenarian contractor who had help us once before on a building undertaking at our former house . Of all the friends , colleagues and tradesmen who see the barn in its dilapidatedstate , he was the only one who did n’t throw up his hands and announce it a lost causa . On the reverse , Ralph ’s eye light up during accept his first enlistment , and it was he who add up up with a practical and affordable resolution .
Tom Cruickshank
The since - at rest quintessential rural old codger , Ralph never take much Scripture - learning but was savvy on the details of timber - frame construction . Having grown up on a farm , he have intercourse erstwhile barns and get it on exactly how all the spell should fit together . recently in life , he had found an interesting niche in the local construction swap as the go - to guy cable for vintage lumber constituent . Despite an urgent need for knee - replacement surgical procedure , you could encounter him on any grant day luxuriously on a scaffold , dismantling an previous building — musical composition by piece — being deliberate to salvage the expert lumber for his inventorying of hewn office and beams , flooring , rafter , b card and other miscellaneous forest . The next day , he would be at a different job web site , using that vintage lumber in the construction of a newfangled construction . He had a knack for unsophisticated garden sheds and rural outbuilding that go like newfangled but look traditional . And it was something along these lines that he proposed for us .
The Prognosis
Upon review , Ralph said he ’d seen other barns in a wad bad condition than ours and proposed that much of it — the easterly ending — was actually quite salvageable . well-nigh all the really forged decay was throttle to a lean - to across the entire south elevation , which was added on a concrete foundation sometime in the early 1900s and not build up to the same standards as the remainder of the b . In fact , he say the lean - to was in all probability the b ’s undoing , because the ceiling sales pitch was so easy that it encouraged ice dams and water leaks . Even so , there was also significant decomposition on the west end of the barn ; this , after all , was where the storey joists were missing . So Ralph suggested the lean - to be sacrifice completely and , more drastically , that the barn should be reduced by half : from nine bents to five , thus preserving the Orient end .
problem was , even the five good bents displayed some serious decay , but there again , Ralph had a solution . He present us that the rot was limit to the tips and bases of the post . All we had to do , he said , was slice up off the punky stuff at each end and the bent-grass would stand very well for another 120 year . Of naturally , this signify the barn would be reduced by about 3 feet in height , but it was n’t like we needed a full - sized barn for our modest hobby functioning .
We cogitate Ralph ’s ideas were a stroke of brilliance . Not only would we get a serviceable barn that looked like a b should , I also liked that it would be built with existing materials , reduce the cost drastically and satisfying my green conscience at the same prison term . Even better , Ralph figured there would be enough fabric go away over in case some other ideas descend to heed . It occurred to me to contain a room—16 by 24 feet — that could suffice as a studio or shop , including a balcony from which we could survey our domain . Sure enough , there were plenty of surplus two - by - four-spot to frame it and lots of granary display panel to floor it . one-time sash windowpane were donated by friends , and with a salvage rail for the balcony , we hardly had to buy a stick of young timber for the entire project .
Tom Cruickshank
Let The Barn Rebuild Begin
The first job was to charter a guy in a shoe steer to scavenge out decades of hay and manure — greatfertilizer!—which revealed that the barn floor and barnyard had been laid in concrete . Ralph ’s body of work get down with pull down the huge slide entryway room access to the haymow , and then he took aside the granary . Unlike a wrecking crew , he and his helpers worked diligently , slash only the timber that was beyond hope but treating the good material with kid gloves . They pulled each nail and stack each board in orderly piles : garner board ( some up to 18 inch broad ) , barn - plug-in siding , story plank , surplus ray , rafters and more . In less than a week , the building was a skeleton and demolition of the west last had begun .
As the workweek progressed , the most enthralling vista was watching as the building was fastidiously raze and re - rear . The roof was dismantled in its entirety — corrugate instrument panel , rafters and all — and coiffure away . As Ralph skip the bent down to size of it , he trimmed off the hogwash from the tips and bases of the posts with his chainsaw . Then the blank slating set off to take shape again . One by one , the bent grass were reassemble and the roof components were put in the exact positions from which they were taken . Indeed , when at last the roof was back in place , the project had turned the recess and all that was left for Ralph to do was nail the existing siding back in place . The trick here was to align the boards with the paint side on the inside , so that the brave out gray b - board was on panorama .
Ralph ’s work was done in about six week ( see ruined barn at the top of this article ) , but the caper was n’t over when he bade us adieu . He forget behind a raft of debris : random boards that were n’t reusable , enough loose hay to bury a small-scale township and a 9 - pes - gamey lot of surplus barn beams , each 15 feet or longer . At first , we opine the beams might actually have some time value and could be sold , but we could n’t even give them away . And thus begin an heroic occupation in which I sliced every unmarried one of them into manageable duration with a chainsaw and split them intofirewood(pretty poor firewood , at that ) . It was five years before we burned through all of it .
But the bad was a shrewish problem with the foundation . Although in hindsight , it appeared as plain as Clarence Day , we did n’t see that the trench mortar joints in the subsist stone cellar wall had all but washed away and that it was destined to fail if not repointed readily . Just as sorry , water was weep into the basement every fourth dimension it rain down . It did n’t assist that the ground beside the barn was tilted toward the foundation . So we called in an shovel to fine - tune the grading and also began what is still an on-going labor : filling each roast with new mortar premix and George Sand . At this writing , there is still more repointing to do , but at least Darlene and I can catch some Z’s at night knowing the construction is intelligent .
Our city friend scoff , but we are as gallant of the barn rehab as we would be of a designer kitchen refurbishment . Although a humble edifice , the b is the meat of our avocation farm . There , we have faithfully determine as new lambs are give birth each spring , and July would n’t be complete without the ritual of stacking 400 bales of hay in the mow each summer . The b is where we call forth our meat boo for the freezer , and we keep our layers there , too . And when a electrical storm rolls in from the west , there ’s no safe vantage point than from the barn balcony .
Sometimes I shake my heading , remembering how blithely we overlooked this giant elephant in the backyard . Here ’s to Ralph , for having the prevision to make something useful out of such a regretful mess . May he rest in peace .
