Day 52: Stairs

Today we're back to the stairs. Over time we've discussed the placement of the stairs and the tack room.

In the same spot

When all was said and done it turned out that the best place for the stairs was where they were originally placed. That will allow the tack room to be generally where we had created that space when the barn was last used which was for raising sheep.

Nice and solid

One of these days we may come across photos from an earlier time which will help better describe some of the things discussed here. This is a temporary stair, but built much better than the existing had been. Notice the platform at the bottom and the hand rail, both of which had not existed.

Long view

If you check Day 46 you'll see the building we were going to take lumber from to use in the tack room. Since that time it's been decided that the lumber is not long enough or in good enough shape to be used in the tack room. Instead lumber from another barn that had been torn down will be used. The photo above is taken from about where the north wall of the tack room will be.

New improved landing

And here is the top of the stairs. You will note the railing. That will eventually have a wall built around it, which, with a door will help keep the wind and weather from the second floor out of the tack room. To see what it looked like before construction and a vague look of what it will be check Day 45.

Day 51: Working the South wall

The south wall has some outside support as we saw in Day 48. Even though it has three cement piers to help hold the cut stone wall in place, it still needs some support and lift to put the second floor in a better position. What you note in this photo is additional lift spots as the crew tries to pull parts of the wall into a position similar to what and where it was when the barn was built. You can see by the red jack on top of one of the piers that the pier is used here as a jack position.

South wall 

Inside the barn you see the braces against the timber. This is to hold the timber in place while cables that you can't see are tied to the sill and pulled back into a better position. Just a little above center of the photo you can see what looks like it might be a steel rod hanging down at an angle. That is the handle of the come-a-long on a cable pulling the wall back into place or at least closer into place.

Beamed being braced

The jacks on the outsde lift the wall enough so that the cable system can pull the wall back. If you look closely you'll see a space between the cross timber and the sill timber. There is a little room to move the outside wall in.

Dead bolt to wall

Notice the saw tooth lap of the two timbers that are the sill. This is looking down at the sill from the second floor. I've been following this gap for some days now. If all works as planned, the jacks lifting from the ouside will help ease the wall in as the cables pull on the inside against the bracing in the photo above. When done in the spring this gap will for the most part be gone, we hope. The stone wall will be built up to hold the sill in place. Then the last two floor boards will be nailed into place covering up this spot and help to hold it all together.

Connection point

Day 50: Floating in Air?

This is just one of those things that is too good to resist. In this photo it looks like the timber with a big piece missing might just be lying on the ground. This is a break in a timber holding the center section. It was one of several timbers that might have been weak or had a part missing. And with as many timbers as there were, who would miss a short piece?

Laying on the ground or floating in air

This second photo from an angle shows that the timbers aren't laying on the ground, but were really in the air holding up the floor boards from the second floor. So this will need to be fixed. Also note in the photo the other timbers. From this side they look in pretty good shape. But from underneath it's another story. So more than just the one with the missing section needs to be fixed.

In the air

Below you see the repair. The old timber is cut off hanging over its support timber. Then instead of replacing the timber with another timber, 2x10 oak boards are nailed to the existing timber and span to the outside wall forming a 'new' timber. We had to do that in several spots because of bad existing timbers and the difficulty and price getting timbers for replacement. It will be strong enough, but will look a bit different.

Stub end

The following photo is taken in about the same place as the second photo above, but from the first floor looking up. Several timbers were found to be less than strong enough for the job and were removed. As noted the cost to find timber to replace the timber made 2x10 joists much more acceptable.

Floor joist instead of floor timber

Day:49: Old is New Again

The work continues inside the barn. It's cold outside, barely getting above freezing most days, but in the barn the work continues.

Timbers under east floor

Above, if you look closely at the far wall you can see the added timber that raise the floor timbers up into their new higher position. This will give us almost a foot more head room downstairs. The new timbers brought in for this part of the project weigh about 500 pounds apiece. Roger said it was a bit tricky getting them in place, but they are now there and doing their job.

Below is what is of greater interest for me, the 'old' cross timbers which you saw in the above photo, that the flooring will be nailed to. Except for color, they look just like the new timbers that were used to raise the floor.

Flooring timbers from on top

We had blog problems which is why some of these pages took some time to post. It also allowed us to mash  up some photos.

Before the boards for the east section were nailed down, Roger had one of the guys jump on the boards on the new timbers and then on the old timbers. We didn't have enough old timbers or old boards to do the east section in all old. The new didn't move much, but the old had a little give in them.

New floor on the east side

Besides the interesting pattern given by the outside light, if you look closely you'll see the closer portion is nailed tight together while the further portion looks like it might have some space between some of the boards. In an earlier blog we discussed how old boards from the center would be used on the east side. Well there were less useable boards than what were expected. So about a third of the east side is old and the rest is new.

Day 48: What stairs?

Supporting posts

More outside support is necessary, this time temporary. This is part of lifting some of the inside vertical timbers. They have to go where the support is needed. Doing the lift on the outside will help keep the barn from moving further out.

New Stairs?

This is the temporary new stairs to the second floor. When we started thinking about how to build the tack room, there was a three foot wall on the east side of the center section. An opening in the wall indicated where the stairs should be. After the 2nd floor timbers were lifted as shown on Day 47, the discussion proceeded on where the stairs should be placed. I was still thinking of the three foot wall and said put the stairs back where the stairs had been before the stairs and wall were removed.

Where the stairs use to be

That's when Roger in effect said take a look and "see" and recognize the situation that the wall was gone.It had been removed so the floor could be lifted. Back to the drawing board. The stairs can be placed just about any place in the barn. Not only that, but the stairs were in such bad shape they will have to be completely rebuilt. You will note in this photo of where the stairs use to be not only is the stairs gone, but so is the three foot wall. I saw it, but didn't "see" recognize the importance.



Day 47: Final posts getting in place

New support posts

If you go back to Day 30, Day 28 and a few other days, we see so many posts in the barn they were referred to as a 'forest' of trees. As the crew was fixing, arranging and adjusting the barn, these temporary posts were moved here and there as necessary. Here we see some the permenant posts in place. If you could see the bottoms of the posts, you would see they are in place because they are standig on cement and covered with tar to help extend their life. Once the grade is set the posts will have tar on them up high enough to give protection from the cement when it is poured.

East section of  barn

The east section is seen here after it was raised to its new height. The floor logs were lifted and new 8x10 timbers were laid on top of the existing timber 'raising the roof' accordingly. In a recent blog we mentioned that the flooring in the center section would be lifted and be used to do at least part of the east section. Then new lumber would finish the east and do the center. Well the 'at least part' is a lot less than we thought it would be. The center floor boards although they were sturdy enough in place, when pulled apart the individual boards were not in as good a shape as we thought. There will be a need to increase the order on the number of 2x8x16 boards for the floor.

Day 46: Little guy does big work

You know it's not easy putting these posts into place in the barn. It sounds easy enough to dig a hole, form and pour some cement, let it cure and put the post in place. Most of that's straight forward, except digging the hole. What was found was a whole lot of rocks that needed to be removed. What probably could have taken an hour to get the cement in place, took two or more hours to accomplish because of all the rocks.



Little guy to the resuce

An old saying goes, "Don't send a boy to do a man's job." Well this is one time the 'boy' wins. Remember the back hoe unit pictured in Day 40 as it was departing. The problem here is that, that tractor is way too large to get into the barn to load out the many stones dug out of the ground when digging the post holes or for that matter to level the ground in the barn. Now hang with me, if the back hoe would be the papa bear, a skid steer would be the mama bear and this mini Ditch Witch skid steer would be the baby bear. It is small, but can get in and get around and haul the stones.

Shed to be removed

A tack room or a room that can store items and not be exposed to the animals in the farm has been  discussed. If that's done wood will be needed for that. A few days ago I showed Roger a shed that needs to be torn down. It's part of a set of buildings in our family that are beyond repair and will be removed and the land put back into agricultural use. I suggested to Roger that if he wanted the lumber for his use, he could have it. He suggested that some of the lumber be used in building the tack room.

Looking inside the shed

Well, hopefully the tack room will look a little better than this inside shot of the shed shows.

Day 45: Posting continues

Roger and I tried yesterday to talk about where posts will be needed to support the barn. Given the horizontal timbers that are left in the structure in great part dicates where vertical timbers need to be placed to support the barn. Roger was going get some orange paint and mark the floor. I got there before he could get the paint, so he and I walked around discussing the issue. For me right now, there are too many temporary posts in the way to really get a good sense of where they might go. The problem and possibility in deciding is that it's important to get the placement as correct as possible to allow as much room as possible to allow for use of and movement in the barn. Some of the additional support posts that have been used can be seen in such posts as Day 28 and Day 44 amoung others.

East wall of the barn

From time to time we've discussed the barn repairs with people in the community and invited them to stop by and see. Well, Ken Licht stopped by yesterday to look at the project. I was telling him about the long timber mentioned in Day 35. When he walked upstairs and looked to the east, he said look at how long that timber is. Notice the timber in the background, it is approximately 45 feet long and about the same square, 10 1/2 by 10 1/2, as the timber downstairs. This timber had to come from a much larger tree.

If you look to the far lower right of the photo you see what might look like part a door. That is what you see in the photo below.

Door leading to stairs

 The walls and ceiling over the stairs allowed the mow to be filled with hay or straw. The door at one time kept the wind from blowing down the stairs. This will get torn apart so the new floor can be put in place. We are looking at making a tack room type of place in this corner downstairs. The question becomes what do we want downstairs and how do we put the stairs back in place.

Day 44: John E.Eichler

Happy Birthday Dad! Dad would have been 90 years old today, but a heart attack followed by cancer took his life at what we now call an early age. If you go to cemetaries and search old graves you will find the age listed in years, months and days. Dad lived 65 years, 7 months and 20 days, if I did the counting right. That is young because if I count my age the same way I'm 65 years, 7 months and 27 days. I've now lived longer than my father.

Well what does that have to do with this farm and the fixing of this barn, quite a bit. Mom was raised on this farm and they were married in this house. Then after a couple years of marriage the story goes that dad helped his father in law, my grandfather, Edward Geiger build the machine shed that you have seen from time to time and will in the future, photos of the barn.

Shed and barn at sunrise today

The shed likes just about like it did when it was built in the late 40s. The cement floor was finally poured in the mid 70s. We did a little remodeling and added the side entrance when we celebrated Grandma Geiger's 100th birthday the summer of 2007.

We have noted the barn being closed in and that would help keep the wind off the workers and allow them to work longer into the winter. But look below for the surprise found today.

Propane heater

Roger and crew are adding posts and posts require cement footings to sit on. The guys dig a hole in the floor, mix cement by hand and pour into forms fashioned in the hole. Roger says the cement needs to be kept warm for some time while it cures. That's true, but you'd be surprised how it helps warm up the barn just a little.

Day 44: 12-12-12

Given all the hoopla of the date, I just couldn't resist including it in todays title. Now the work will seem slow, although it will continue at about the same speed. The results just aren't as obvious. There are no big walls to file in or piers to see poured. It'll be push up one timber here and move another there. All very important and necessary, but unless you are there to see it happen you don't always 'see' it happen.

New section of north wall

We saw this wall from the outside in Day 43. We said that the wood was butted together and would dry, shrink and leave long slits. You can see that even though the boards were nailed as tight together as possible, there still is a little space between some boards you can't see that from the outside.

Boards ready to leave

We have shown material coming in. Well turn about seems to be fair play. The old boards on the left of the trailer are the boards that had been piled on the main level of the barn. They were used to fill in spots for missing boards. Most of the boards are leaving because only a few were needed.

Holding it together

Sometimes chains are used to make sure some parts will not move while parts are. But the real reason for this photo is the post on the left side on the red jack. What's interesting about it, is it is a cross arm from Pigeon Telephone Company when open steel wire was the method of connecting customers together instead of the fiber optics and copper that are used now. The pegs pointing toward you out of the post would have insulators put on them and then the steel wire would be lashed to the insulator. That photo is one for old time telephone people that may be reading this blog.

Day 43: Beginning a new week - it's a little colder

Yesterday no work was done on site, but that doesn't mean that work wasn't being done. Roger is getting a fair amount of lumber from the Amish in the Gladwin area. As he said "you can't call them" so it takes a little longer to get materials from them. Also Roger's trailer though fairly good size can only carry so much material. Below are some 8x10 timbers that arrived a few days ago and will be used for posts and timbers in various parts of the barn.

8x10 timbers

On Day 41 we saw the first of six vertical timbers held up by one of these timbers. Here we see a horizontal timber that needed replacing. The pile, which is down stairs, is short one more timber.

Nice new timber in place.

On the Day 1 blog we saw the first load of materials. Well this is a new week and a new load. What you see on top of course is a ladder. The pile right under the ladder are 1x6 boards. Down and to the left are some of the new 2x8s that will become the new floor in the center section of the upstairs. If you look closely center right you will see some 4x4s that will be the structural backing (gerts as they are called) to the section of open wall that remains as shown on Day 40.

The next load of lumber

As we end this day, back to the 1x6. The pile of old 1x material on the floor of the barn that was rescued from other barns will be used to fit in where boards are missing. The new 1x6 will be used to fill in that missing wall shown on Day 40. The boards will butt together rather than lap. So when the boards dry and shrink they'll have similar spacing to the original siding. Some day in the future the siding on the barn will all look the same.

Wall is closed

The barn is almost closed in. Three pieces of siding, nail a couple boards and tarp on the roof. Closed like this will allow for a few more weeks of working time.

Day 42: Getting there, but still a ways to go

In an earlier blog you saw the section that once was doors that will be wall. But there are still other places that need a bit of cover before winter really sets in.

There's a hole in the roof.

We've seen this in previous blogs. There is a large spot at the northwest corner where the corner timber is almost rotted away. The roof in that area is in need of much work before a new roof can be put in place. So in a few days the wall will get boards and the roof in that spot will get a tarp. That will keep the worst out until next spring. It will also let the men continue working inside until the temperatuere gets too cold.

Part of center section has floor planks removed.

These are the timbers that supported the 100 year old planks we saw in yesterdays blog. When all is in place underneath new planks will go here.

East third of the second floor.

This is the east side of the upstairs we've seen so often. We will decide in the next few days, if the floor will be lifted about 10 inches or so. Once the floor is in place, the 100 year old planks in yesterdays blog will become the floor boards in this area.

Day 41: Getting Closer

You will remember that I pointed out the front had been closed in for some time before I realized it. Well today we get closer. Yesterday we saw the two upper doors that had been built. Today the north lower door has been built. You'll notice it looks a bit cock eyed. Most of that should be eliminated once the west wall is replaced and the landscaping is complete sometime next year.

North lower door

The track that holds the various slideing door is called cannon ball. It is strong and should allow the door to glide easily for years. To the left side is the barn grade. Just to the left of the end of the door track we will probably build a retaining wall to hold the barn grade in place.

First of six center vertical beams in place

This is the vertical timber you saw at the end of Day 37 beside the ladder. The cross timber has been shoved to the south to put it under the 2nd floor vertical. The post sits on a cement pier buried in the 1st floor. If you could see it is covered with tar already for the cement floor when it's poured next year.

Lumber over 100 years old

We're still working on dating the barn. Some of the wood is in not so good shape so it will have to be replaced. This pile of limber in the back ground which is over 100 years old is in good shape and will be used in fixing up the barn.

Day 40: The close in continues

Ford tractor used in barn repairs

Today we say good by to one of Rogers helpers, the Ford tractor with bucket and back hoe. Roger has need of a good deal of equipment, but he doesn't need to own it all. He has found that many times it is less expensive to rent the equipment needed from someone in the area where he is working. He doesn't have to haul it back and forth or have it sit weeks or months on end waiting for the next job. Roger says this tractor will be back when the weather is right in the spring.

Looking about 12 down 

If you look back to yesterdays blog you will see two 2x10 planks going from the barn grade over the 10 foot wide by about 12 foot deep hole. When I was much younger I would think nothing of walking up a board like this in such a position. Well it took a little longer and I was a whole lot more careful. And I made it because I'm here to write about it.

Two doors finished

You'll notice the two planks, one of which I walked on, are still in place. The doors are done. The opening is where there use to be two more doors. We've decided to eliminate them. The hole will be filled in with old boards that are similar to the rest of the barn that Roger has resuced from barns that have been torn down.

Day 39: Close in work continues

You don't build these things in a day. As the crew starts they are working on the two doors. You see here the two frames. There are many hours of routing out the 2x4s and 2x6s that make up the frame.

Two door frames

If you look closely you can just barely see the split between the boards that make up the two frames. Speaking of looking close, it is hard to see at the beginning and end of the day. So Roger said he has a set of lights to hang, but they are too old so he went out and bought a new string. They aren't Christtmas lights, but that's what I call them.


String of lights waiting for the bulbs
 

Later in the day we see the first door being gradually put into place. It's easier to hang the frame and then attached the boards to the frame, than building it all on the ground and then trying to muscle it into place.

First door partially built

If you look closely left almost center is what looks like a straight brown line. That's the frame for door two. The yellow dots are the Christmas lights.

Also of note today, Roger who at times has problems with a knee went home to have the doctor take a look at it. The guys that work for him will continue the project. Roger says he'll be back in a couple of days.



Day 38: Closing in the Barn

Today the work is going in ernest to close in the barn so the crew can work a few more days into the winter. Now if we'd known Thursday what we know today the partial wall needed to reenforce the north wall where it meets the barn grade that could have been poured today. But who would ever think that we'd have mid 50s on December 3. Oh well that work will be there when spring arrives.

Pine boards

Believe it or not this, what seems to be a small pile of pine 1x boards will become the two doors letting you in at the top of the barn grade. If you look back at a previous blog the two doors will cover the west side of the opening. The doors will each be 12 feet plus wide.There is another pile of old pine 1x down stairs that will be put in place to cover the area that once was the two east doors.

Vertical timber being prepped for jacking

Five of the six vertical timbers that will be jacked have now had a lifting timber mated to them. In this photo the timber that is being lifted is to the far left. The timber doing the lifting is in the center with a jack under it. There are two steel rods that go through both of them, holding the timbers together. The rods will have most of the pressure during the lift.