Completing the barn (Part 1)

With the long holiday weekend we wanted to try and finish up the last items on the barn punch list so we can get the building inspector out of here. The board and batten siding needs to go up, a few more 2x4 braces between the trusses and a a few more screws in the tin roof. I can only imagine what the building department thought when I pulled a permit for the barn. This is probably the only pole barn ever in Chatham County that a building permit has been pulled for. It was not a big deal since there are only 2 inspections.

To recap it is a 36x46 ft pole barn with a 4/12 roof. We set it up with the last 10 feet of the barn as a covered sawmill site. This is where we are going to keep our Norwood Lumbermate 2000 which has provided much of the timber and lumber, including trim and floors, for our timber frame house. It seems luxurious to be sawing under roof with all my tools at hand. We have about 100 southern yellow pine logs ready to cut on the mill. They came from the barn clearing. First at hand is the board and batten siding.

For the last few days I have been using the services of my two favorite helpers (Jacob,6 (L) and Joshua, 7 (R)). They do a great job emptying the saw dust bucket and tailing on the mill. They are liking the barn as much as me and have spent hours climbing ladders and swinging on the swing that we hung from the trusses.

The barn is going to be a work and staging area for our house addition which we hope to kick off in January. We enjoy our timber frame home but are starting to feel a bit cramped in 1100 sq ft of living space given we are a family of 4. If we only lived in the 1950's we would be set size wise.

Jeff and his son Christian was back on the job again. He has not been out here working since the middle of summer. Jeff is a skilled jack of all trades and he does all things construction from framing to granite counter tops. We got one of the 3 exterior walls done and have two more to do and plan on completing them tomorrow.

To be continued....

A recent comment....

When you start a blog you are not sure who will be reading it. The blog started shortly after we did the raising of our timber frame house almost two years ago as a way of tracking our progress and sharing our experiences with friends and family. The unexpected reward of the blog has been the comments and interactions we have had with people who we have met through this endevour. We have developed some new friends that heard about our projects on the Internet and since then have spent countless hours answering questions, giving advice and providing a helping hand when we needed it.

Also, there have been several people who have left great comments and words of encouragement especially as our homesteading took a detour the last 18 months as my beautiful and strong wife,Stephanie, successfully took on cancer and beat it.

Here was such a comment from a few days ago....

Anonymous said...
It's funny that I came to this place to read an entry about the Grove Park Inn and Ephraim Faience Pottery but left more interested in Stephanie's recovery, and this family's seemingly therapeutic building of a home. I no longer believe it when people say - The blogosphere, welcome to the unhappiest place on Earth - there is love and joy here. It's just that oftentimes, like in the "real" world, there may be a little effort involved in finding it. Thank you for this blog! And for sharing your wonderful world with others!

AE