The Barn Project

I had mentioned, I believe, in my last post that we had found a barn on Craigslist that wanted dismantling in return for the material, and after taking that trip up to Mountain City to check it out, we called the owners and agreed to take it on. Our reasoning was simple; some time, some way, all that wood and tin was gonna come in handy. At the least, all the metal could be scrapped for cash. So it was a something for nothing but a little sweat equity deal.

Fourth of July weekend promised to be

three days of clear, but hot weather, so we decided to make the best of it, and loaded up the truck with

Kyle, Lugnut and all the tools we could think of, and set out for Ground Zero....a/k/a Mountain City.

Nasty does not even begin to descri

be the interior of this place. It had fallen into serious disrepair over the years, but we figured that it must have been built around 1930 or thereabouts. And in its heyday, it must have beenstate of the art. There was quality apparent in every aspect of the construction...even to the 18" wide planks of hemlock used to side it. It broke my heart to see how a once great

structure was let go to ruin. Very sad.

The rain coming in the unsheltered parts of the roof had soaked everything underneath those spots, and where there was hay, it had held the dampness and caused the wood to rot. Any place the roofing was still on, and the wood had been protected, it was solid as a rock....or so we thought. That part comes later.

We started by cleaning out what trash and mouldy hay we could from the interior so we could move around easier. While Keith went

upstairs to start removing the siding, (you can

see him here hanging out the second floor),

Kyle and I got to work downstairs with rakes and shovels, dragging out everything we could, and shoveling out what we couldn't. It was a back-breaking job. And what made it worse was

having to dodge all the rotten and mis

sing floor boards....not just to avoid steppin

g in, but to try to slide the trash and rotten hay around without it falling

in the holes.

During all this time, we had tied Luggy to a tree

near the truck so he'd have plenty of water, food and shade, but be able to supervise from a safe distance, and be close enough for us to be able to sneak over for quick pets and loves whenever we took a break. We did stop for a bit around n

oon for a nice play session, and ate a sandwich then, but then it was right back to the grind. Well....after a couple of photo ops, that is.

The sun was hot, burning the backs of our necks, and by two o'clock, we were pretty much tapped. But so much had been done that we decided we'd put in a full day, anyway.

Kyle and I had managed to get the center part of the downstairs cleaned out completely, and even swept out so we could see the floor, and had started on the dilapidated side. Keith had pulled a lot of the siding down, and we had pulled nails and stacked the best of it on the trailer, leaving the rest either for scrap, or to take another day.

Amazing how much difference a day makes, huh?

By comparing this picture to the second picture above, it's really evident how much dismantling actually did get done in one day. Hot, tired, sweaty, and sunburned, we gathered tools, wood and pup and headed home for a well-deserved rest.