The Barn

When Amy and I bought Windy Willow Farm in 2006, the barn was in pretty bad shape. It had no front door, was sliding slowly down the embankment and was filled with manure and trash that had been accumulating for decades. Our insurance provider refused to even insure the barn in its existing condition.

Amy and I filled four dumpsters with material removed from the barn , , ,

Below is what the first floor of the barn looked like when we began cleaning it out. This is where I planned to build my workshop. There was clearly much cleaning that needed to be done. I also shoveled a LOT of horse shit!

Due to the fact that the main door plus several boards on the front of the barn had been missing for decades . . .

The second floor was not in much better shape than the first floor. Among many other things, I found newspapers dating to the 1960s and books dating to the 1940s.

But it was a wonderful old pole barn!

I also had them build a floor across the entire rear of the barn.

The rear siding of the barn was clearly not in very good condition!

So I removed all of the siding.

The view of the meadow from the inside of the barn was wonderful!

So, I decided to line the whole back wall with windows.

First I had to cover the entire back of the barn with a house wrap to keep the rain and snow out.

Then I framed and insulated the walls.

I installed windows and insulated the ceiling.

I then hired another contractor to extend the floor, giving me a total of about 1,200 square feet of floor space upon which to build the workshop.

The next big job was building the barn doors.  Amy (a.k.a. "Barn Girl") and I built Dutch-style doors.  Besides making the barn more secure, the doors would keep out the weather and prevent the barn from deteriorating all over again.  Below are a series of photos that chronicle the building of the doors.

I repaired the second floor, replacing several of the boards that had either collapsed or were missing and cleaned out all of the trash that had accumulated over the past decades. I also replaced the windows that were missing.

The second floor of the Barn today.

Then "Barn Girl" and I installed a door to my workshop . . .

I then built a hearth made from stone found around the property and installed a wood-burning stove in the workshop so that I can work there throughout the year. I also paneled all of the walls . . .

I then had a new metal roof added.  I had to fight with leaks in the old roof for years.  It was nice to finally enter my workshop and not worry if I was going to find puddles of water!

Finally, I installed new siding over the entire first floor of the barn, as well as over the entire front of the barn. I was able to find a local lumber yard that carried rough-hewn Hemlock, which is what was used for siding on the barn originally.

The workshop today . . . 

A far cry from what the first floor of the barn looked like

when I began my barn restoration project!

Restoring the barn and building the workshop has been one of the most gratifying projects I have undertaken at the farm. It has been a continuing project that kept me occupied for several years and was truly a labor of love.  It will be one of the things I will miss the most when we leave. In addition to spending hours and days working on various projects while listening to music from eight speakers lined across the entire length of the workshop, being in the workshop with its many windows opening out onto the meadow provided me with a real sense of being in the beautiful natural environment of the farm. It is also where I store the food I take out to the meadow to feed the deer each day, one of the other memories I will treasure.

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