Farm With A Barn

A farm is not complete without a barn. A red barn with white trim is preferable! When we decided to build a barn, we had no idea how it would end up looking because so many changes have come along through the building process!

We knew we wanted the classic look in terms of style, shape, color. We knew we wanted it to function in certain ways – to be used for certain things. So, the rafter shape had to be classic gambrel (Dutch barn) style, a chicken coop was a must as we had chickens in a makeshift space in our shed, a secure storage room for feed and supplies, a stall in the back for Shadow, the very intelligent but bratty pony, a hay mow for the hay to be kept clean and dry and then of course, there's always a need for storage. Searching the internet for a suitable truss plan was foremost and completely achievable. I was able to find a plan and scaled to the footprint we wanted at 32 feet wide.

Sourcing material for much of the project was straight forward, but the hay mow (loft) would be spanning 16 feet from beam to beam under the considerable load of hundreds of hay bales. Lumber that is capable of this load is not available a the local home improvement center, so I went to a local sawmill and found the ideal material for this application, a rough sawn 2x10, fully 2 inches by 10 inches. Based on the building code for joist spans, these full dimension 2x10 are perfect for the application.

The decking for the mow was also picked up at the sawmill, full dimension 1x6, the wall studding as 2x6, and the trusses were sourced from yet another sawmill, clear lumber with no knots, 2x6 inch full dimension. My Dad, knowing lumber from growing up in a sawmill family, was impressed by the rafter lumber's excellent quality!

While choosing all this lumber, we were unable to get the 8 foot length for the wall studs, so the sawmill offered 12 foot substitutes. From there, somehow, we chose to make the barn much higher with 12 foot walls. Suddenly, the building had a real scale to it! With 12 foot high walls and the large gambrel rafters, we now have a barn at 29 feet high! This brings me to the next point, roofing the building. After much debate on color, we chose a dark green shade in classic “Barnmaster” style roofing steel. Installing the steel was a very tedious and slow job, especially with the weather of late September becoming wet and unpredictable, never mind the heights we were working at!

Currently, there is still a lot of finishing to do, but the barn is usable and closed in for the most part.

As needs arise, we will finish up sections to fit the need; and there always seems to be a new need on the farm!