Adventures on the Farm
150 Years of History —
Gone in a few days!
Our farm has been in my husband Joe's family for 90 years. When Joe's mom was a baby, her parents moved here.
We're not exactly sure how old our barn was but it's older than the house and the house is nearly 120 years old.
So when Joe decided to take down the barn so he could build a new, heated shop, I was a bit skeptical. What would it cost? How much work was involved? And was he sure he wanted to demolish all that history?
He contracted with Rick Bartelt of Bartelt, the Remodeling Resource to do the demolition and clean-up. Bartelt will use the nice, old beams in his future construction projects. The rest was ours to keep so Joe offered the floor boards and beams to our neighbor Francis.
It's done now so there is no looking back. However I did make sure to take dozens of photos and some video so I could preserve it in our memories.
Here is our week
Tuesday, June 30 — Sunday, July 5, 2015.
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| Barn before June 30, 2015 |
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| The empty haybarn - June 29 |
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| The back of the barn never had siding. |
Joe started on the round front before the crew got here. Joe's Dad added that part onto the barn late 1960s.
The lower barn added a few more stanchions for cows and the upper barn was a grainery to store oats.
I was gone for a short time Tuesday morning. By the time I got home,
the crew from Bartelt had most of the tin off the roof.
The age of the barn was apparent after the steel and tin were removed.
It went fast once they got to the siding and boards. By end of day 1, all that was left was the frame.
Can we simply pull it down without causing too much damage?
The crew cut out the brace beams and hooked up our biggest tractor and it was ready to go.
11:00 a.m. July 1 - watch video.
I couldn't believe how fast it came down!
Think about how long it took to put up those beams 150 years ago. And they were down in 5 seconds!
A lot to clean up here!
Much of it was cleaned up later that day.
After the beams were pulled off the milkhouse, we realized one had done damage to the roof. Not a big deal because Joe needs to replace that roof anyway. But the guys patched it up so no rain damage is done in the interim.
Time for this crew to relax and have a beer. They really worked. It's hard to believe they did all that in 2 1/2 days.
The beams will be used in future house projects for Bartelt - The Remodeling Resource.
It's nice to know our old barn will live on in someone's home.
But we weren't done yet.
Friday, July 3, 2015
The front of the barn without the haybarn and a view of the inside of the barn, including a few cats and chickens.
The front block wall and the addition had to come down before Joe & Francis could get at the big, old beams and floor.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
The beams were exposed after a few floor boards were removed.
The beams just sat on top each other. The boards kept everything in place.
One beam at a time! Watch video above.
This is an amazing piece of equipment. Watch video above.
Notice the big beam in the middle.
It's sort of just balancing on the steel poles with only the cross beams in the back holding it up.
Joe and Francis worked hard all day. It was hot and humid and this was a very dirty job but they kept going. It had to get done while they had use of the skytrack. They were a little over half done by the end of Saturday.
Sunday, July 5, 2015
They were almost done by mid-afternoon on Sunday.
It's a good thing we had the cats and chickens to supervise all week!
We're putting this one to bed folks!