This Old Barn – Phase One
We recently completed the first phase of the barn renovation and anyone who lives through renovations knows that it can be challenging. Finding a home for the goats for a month or so was one of ours. The first phase was to stabilize the structure with new footings and at the same time get the roof a little straighter. The old barns were usually built on a fieldstone foundation and after 150 or so years the stones move around a bit, the posts get into contact with the earth and the process of rotting starts. Over time the barn will slowly sink until it collapses. We see them all over the area which is sad. More than one person told us this barn wasn’t worth saving but if you consider all the work that went into building it, we felt an obligation to try to preserve it.
I took many photos during the renovation and this is a good ‘Before’ shot.
This a good ‘After’ shot which shows the improvement in the roof and the grading. Aside from this, it doesn’t look much different but it went through a lot of peeling away of layers to bring it back to the basic shell of the structure. We’re shortly onto phase two, which involves redoing the exterior boards, redoing the main door and adding windows. On the inside, we are adding pens for the goats and Pitou, rooms for the chickens and storage.
