Barn Build

16 degrees and with the wind it felt like FOUR! If it were you or me we’d jump back under the covers. Not these guys.



Where do we find them on this frigid winter day? Up on the roof finishing off the shingles over my office



Our cat, Umberto  Eco plays the on site manager.



He was kind of hoping that the boys would leave the squirrel holes open “Just for sport.”



But that is not all!



The new door is in - can you say W I D E ?



and the new stairs to the second floor - can you say W I D E ?



Not sure what’s next but these guys are going gangbusters.

So my two youngest sons measured out how much Styrofoam insulation the back wall of the barn would need and Saturday they put it up.



Eventually this wall will be covered in the recycled antique barn board pulled up from the floor. My boys have a den on the other side that is not heated. The outside walls and ceiling are insulated so it gets pretty warm from a south facing window. This was the only wall left to be insulated, after it went up they could tell the difference right away.



The boys did a great job. And only that little piece on the floor was left.

The frigid cold weather we had this last week has slowed things down a bit here at the old Barn Build Project. The guys were up on the roof replacing the singles, and got one side done before the snow came. I managed to snap off a few shots while they were still setting up.



Lucy of course loves this cold weather and spends the whole day watching the guys work sleeping on the snow.



One of the things they Guys were able to get done is installing two post that carry most of the weight of the barn. There are at each end of the barn on the long side. They start on the cement floor (under which is a four foot footing or column of Cement), and go up right through the ceiling and support this trapezoidal truss that holds up the second floor. You can kind of see it here.

They are connected to the cement floor with with some heavy duty hardware.



We Also got our new back door! My father in law rides a wheelchair in and out of our house and the original door is only 29 inches wide so he is constantly banging his hands on the way in and out.



So the NEW DOOR is 36 inches wide!



The old door with be recycled back into the barn as the door into the kids den (of iniquity) that was originally the stable and currently has a very loosely fitting and heavy door (26 inches wide).Tomorrow I will write about how my two youngest sons insulated the back wall (the one that separates the garage part of the barn from their den of iniquity).

Cement or Concrete is a liquid that becomes a solid through a chemical reaction between the molecules of the material. In 1824, English inventor, Joseph Aspdin created what we call now Portland Cement by burning ground limestone and clay together. The burning process changed the chemical properties of the materials causing them to fuse together when mixed with water. One of the many uses of course is the floor of my Barn where we will park our cars.



I have to tell you that both my Wife and I, although embracing this 19th century technology, feel that the overall effect looks so modern compared to our old (totally unrealistic and structurally inadequate) 18th century wood plank floor.

After the gravel was spread and pounded down, work moved to fixing my antique palladian office window.



It turned out to be cheaper to fix it than replace it with new.



The other option was to put in a square window in the same space, but that would have broken my heart.



Here is a link to a video I took out my office window last winter. 
Snow Out Window

Here is the thing. The Barn Project could care less on my ability to keep up with the fantastic progress the guys are doing.
Today they start removing the three layers of shingles on the roof. No doubt there will be some more work than just replacing the shingles, but I’ll keep you posted.

Backing up a bit. After pulling up the wood floor and digging the holes and filling the cement pilings, I woke up one morning last week with this mountain in my driveway.



A steaming pile of gravel. Destined to be spread (at about 4 inches) throughout the Barn Floor.

So it goes from a pile pictured above, to a nice even bed ready to have concrete poured on top.

Before they spread out the gravel, they packed down the dirt. And before the cement goes down the gravel was also packed down.

So more photos to come. Lots and Lots of stuff to come your way.

So in my thanksgiving day gastronomic stupor, I forgot to post the pictures of foundation post holes filled with cement.







 

The bricks from the chimney have been tucked up under the sill as filler (rubble) and under what once was the stable part of the barn and now serves as the boys den of iniquity.

Found under all the wood rubble along with the rotting remains of old barrels were these:



Some say “Full Pint Guaranteed.” Some say “Friends Apothecary.” Many still had corks in and lids on.

The project is going faster than anyone (even the builders) expected. This cute little diesel powered backhoe drove in and dug twelve holes a little over four feet deep. One in each corner, one in the middle of each end, and the rest spread out along the long axis of the barn.

Big cylinders of cement will go in each of these.



Upstairs the winches have been pulling the barn square.

These straps can each hold ten thousand pounds of stress before they break. Currently they are running at about 8000 pounds of stress each.

There is even a winch pulling the trellis that hold up the ceiling of the first floor back into square.

Wow! The Barn Boys have been busy. I left the house early Wednesday morning for the airport. (on my way to Texas to give my 6 hour seminar to a great bunch of law enforcement guys from Canada and the US.)  When I left a pile of 8×8x12’s filled the driveway, the dumpster was half full, and they were setting up jacks on the dirt floor.



By Friday, the dumpster is full. FULL! And about half the wood is gone. Check out this photo!

The small amount of cement that was part of the barn (connecting it to the driveway) will be spread out with the gravel that we be spread out under the new cement floor that we park on.

The bricks from the Chimney will go there too. 

The old wood floor was supported up with little Rock Kerns like this one: