Home Made Boards & Beams

One of the new wallplate sections on the mill 

Dominik working at the mill

The Barn's roof will be raised by 10 inches with a set of new additional wallplates. Some serious waight in these, specially when they are still only freshly cut.

From Tree to Timber

Cutting the trees in the own forrest

cutting the logs into rafters, boards and joists

Home Made Beams for the Job

Its a blessing to have the timber on the farm, and "all" we need to do is cut them inside the forrest, drag them out and shape them into beams. It needed one hell of a lot of logs. Soon enough a big pile of rafters was cut and stacked to dry. 

Underpinning the Post and Beam Structure

Corner post on sole plates don't look so bad on first sight

Had to come off

     

The barn is still on its original legs

Steel post in place

ready for poring concrete 

First Things First, The structure is still on some very weak legs 

We used the Tractor hydraulic and ram to lift the corner to rectify the level as good as possible. All the post ends and sole plate timber was rotten beyond repair and had to be removed. We dug foundation trenches and made sure the new steel uprights reached solid clay bottom. There was still 4 feet of bog below the old foundation. no surprise the barn had sunk so far at the front.

The beginning of the project

Picture of he barn when it was newly built 1995

New Year's Resolution

The old Post and beam Barn is now over 20 years old and in despaired need of repair.We have set out on a three year venture to bring back the beauty and pride to the old building. Plans are to rectify the skew angles after the barn sank a foot out of plum,  replace the roof, walls, windows and floors. change the extension and transform it into a multi purpose function hall to host barn dances, classes, parties, and facilitate the indoor parts of our farm tours with large groups and schools.
Its a mighty project and we've put it on the long finger for far to long. Now that work has started there is no turning back no matter how scary it seems. There will still be plenty changes to the new plans as ideas and options grow as we go along.

We'd be delighted if you like to follow this blog, to observe the progress, share the excitement, or even get inspired by it.
Please feel free to comment or make suggestions!
Sigi