Week 12

Back to work in the barn.  But before I talk about the barn, I have a couple of pictures from today to share.


I went to Lowe's to pick up some wood, and when I came back the yard and the barn was covered with turkeys.  I was able to get a picture right after I puled in the driveway, but but by the time I took the picture more than half the turkeys flew off.  They were on the roof, on the dumpster and all over the place in the back yard.

This picture was taken with my phone, so the lack of quality makes it hard to see the turkeys.

My good camera was in the barn, so I was able to sneak out the back and get a picture of the birds as they walked into the woods. Unfortunately, I only had the wide angle lens.

I worked on two projects this week.  First, I tackled the large back doors of the barn, and second, there is rot and damage to one of the posts next to the large front doors.

The back doors were nailed shut, and even after I pulled all of the nails and boards off, I still could not open the doors. The doors are in descent shape, but the hinges were completely rusted.

So I replaced all of the hinges and in doing so, was able to straighten the doors when I rehung them.  I was happy to save the doors, and that also meant that i didn't have to spend a couple of days building new doors.

Back doors rehung with new hinges.

Back doors open for the first time.

Opening the back doors lets in a ton of light!

One project down, moving on to the rotten footing and post. The footer under the post by the front door was so rotten that the post was just hanging in the air.

I think the barn did not have gutters for a while, and the water ran off the roof and splashed off the asphalt and caused the rot.

You can actually see how the post is settling and causing the wall to sag.

After pulling up a couple of the floor boards, I was able to replace the footer and jack the post up a couple of inches. I put in some braces, removed the jack and put in a new bottom for the post. 

When I pulled up the floor boards, I noticed that the footer under the post on the opposite side of the door was also rotted out. I am not really sure what was holding up the front of the barn.  So, I removed the rotted footer on the other side of the door, replaced it, and put in a new bottom for the post on the other side.

I also had to reframe the floor mostly by sistering to the existing floor joists.  Since it was beer thirty, I decided to call it quits for the day and leave the rest of the job to next week.  I need to attach the joist ledger board to the cement and then replace the floor boards.  Some day I will get to do something fun for the barn, like build a workshop or a climbing wall.