Now what!?

It's official. The large barn (see "Where we've been") is now ours to dismantle and move to Raccoon Creek.

We are planning the process of taking it down. We'll do what we can ourselves, but if the superstructure is too difficult or dangerous to take down, we'll hire someone with experience to do it.

We plan to go to the site many times and stay at least a few days each time. It will take a few days just to clean everything out of the barn and a few more to remove all the loft flooring and the joists in the lofts.

Then the real fun begins. We'll start by taking off the metal roof sheets. Each is about 24" X 6'. If we're lucky, we'll be able to punch them off from the inside with long poles. As they slide off, we'll remove the nails and stack them. Those that are relatively undamaged can be used at Raccoon Creek for shed roofs, remote parking areas, and maybe for raised planting beds, though we may learn that using them for that is a bad idea. At the same time, as they become completely uncovered, the purlins - the boards nailed to the rafters to which the roofing is nailed - are taken off, "denailed", and stacked. Chances are they will not be reuseable, but we'll try to find a way. Maybe they can be used for deer fences.

Next, or simultaneously if we have more people at the same time, we can start removing the siding. We're told this should be done from the middle of each wall toward the sides since even the siding provides some stability to the barn as it is being taken down. We will continue to remove nails from everything as we go. Though tedious, removing nails is work even youngsters can help with after we move the detached parts safely away from the building.

When all this work is complete it's time to bring in some large equipment, probably a crane, to take off the beams at the top and begin taking down each bent and attached lengthwise beams. As they come down, they will be taken apart and stacked. I forgot to mention that long before any wood comes off the building, each piece is tagged with a code to allow us to reassemble it properly.

That's the main steps. Finally, we'll load it all on a flatbed truck and head toward Owen County. Hopefully by the time we ship the barn we'll know where it's to be rebuilt and we can unload it close to the site and not have to move it again.

Moving this historic barn is a large project and will take many weeks of part-time effort. Help from anyone will be greatly appreciated.