How I spent my holiday

From Sunday about noon until today about 4pm two of us knocked down all the interior walls, mangers, and gates in eight of the ten long-wall, outside bays of the barn in New Albany. The two pictures below show some of the results.

We also pulled nails and stacked lumber that we might be able to reuse, and sorted the unusable lumber into nail-free and with-nails piles. Maybe we can find someone who could use the wood for campfires or some other purpose. Otherwise it will all likely be burned without fanfare.

The barn still has thousands of feet of Virginia creeper, despite our having removed three times as much last weekend. When the only wood floor on the first floor of the barn was mostly removed today (see extreme lower left corner of "Most bays now empty" below), Virginia creeper was found still alive under the boards. It's nasty stuff to get rid of, but it looks nice on the side of the barn when it's alive.

The entire floor of the first bay couldn't be removed because there are posts on top of some of it. These should not be structural, but there is a post and a beam that may not be reusable due to dry rot, so we left some of the secondary beams in place just in case. In the same picture, the second post shows about two feet of dry rot at the bottom and the one to its left is literally hanging from the beam.

On the next trip to the barn site we'll finish the last three interior walls, knock two large containers apart, remove some large pieces of plate glass, and start removing siding and maybe start on the roof. The barn has five neat old lightening rods, but, alas, they have been reserved by the owner. After that we'll be ready to hire the crane to take down the big stuff.

Over the next few weeks the barn owner-donor will have the barn valued for her charitable gift, and will prepare a "Waiver of Liability" form to be signed by everyone who volunteers at the site for us. The appraisal may not be done for a few weeks, so the timing for our next work day should be just about right.

We think we have access to enough "extra" posts and beams from a few other barns we've been offered to replace any rotted ones we have found. This likely will be done by cutting off the bad part, always at the bottom of the posts where they have been subjected to some standing water over the years, and putting the better post below the cuts. These will be "scabbed on," meaning we will bolt on two or more long wooden strips that will tie the two parts together, or possibly just use some iron straps that will do even better without the added thinkness of the extra boards.

It's getting late, and there's much to do before our vacation starts, so I'll stop now and post this entry. If you have questions or comments about the barn, send me a note.