It’s the height of summer here on the farm, and it was forty-eight degrees when we woke up this morning. It warms quickly, but it makes for awesome sleeping weather! We’ve talked about the cycles of life here- the black flies, then the yellow flies, then the “hover-bugs”, then the next… same with the flowers. The lilies are wrapping it up for the year, so we can begin digging out the plants in areas of the yard we want to return to yard, and move them down to the freshly-cleared hillside food garden we’re creating. We can tuck lilies among the boulders and create some color on the hill. While the lilies and others are fading, there are many more newcomers to take their place. There is always something blooming in this old, mostly natural landscape.
Since you last visited the farm, we’ve been busy talking to contractors and experts in timber frame construction about what we need to do to save our barn. When we first looked at this property, we fell in love with the barn. It’s an English scribe-rule barn with gunstock posts and Dutch tie beams (tapered).
Gunstock joints or beams get their name from their outward taper at the top, which resembles the stock/butt from a rifle. The taper provides a solid foundation onto which the other beams and bracing can rest. The plate beams, or main horizontal beams that sit at the top of each vertical wall, are solid beams that run the length of the barn, which is 46 feet! It’s a four bay barn, so it is made up of five “bents”, or rafter sections. Then it has an early-twentieth century two-story shed addition that extends twelve feet off the back. We were told the barn was built in about 1840, but the timber frame experts that have looked at it have all confirmed that it is much earlier, and likely pre-dates the house by a bit. It was a working barn up to a few years ago, and has had a lot of patching over the years, but it’s reached a point where it needs some dire, immediate attention. Most of the gunstock joints have enough rot that two of the rafters have actually slid off the tie beams, creating gaps in the roof. There is also a bit of rot in some of the purlins, which are the horizontal members between each bent.
Gunstock joints are hugely complex hand-scribed joints that can contain up to seven or more independent parts, all connected perfectly, without any mechanical fastening. The joints in our barn still show the crisp markings from the framers who built it, identifying each component as belonging to each joint. You can see the Roman numerals, below.
There was a standard numbering system used to identify each joint in it’s place within the entire structure. Starting with the front of the barn, each joint/bent would be identified by a Roman numeral “I”, then “II”, and so on to the back. Then from the right side (facing the barn), each joint would be noted as “IA”, then “IB”, and so on to the other side.
There have been many patches and stabilizing methods added to the barn over the years- plates sistered over the joints, cut-thread turnbuckles and staples added to hold joints together, but we’re at the tipping point. We did buy some time having the twelve new footings and posts installed under the barn last fall, as well as the gutters and some other things we’ve done, but there is still much to do. A couple of the timber frame guys with whom we consulted this week, recommend dismantling the barn, laying the frame on the ground and rebuilding it. Both estimates match what we bought the entire property and house for.
Another idea offered was to sell the frame, then build a new modern barn in its place. This is our least favorite option, as we really love the history of the barn. Plus, it belongs here.
Our favorite option at this point is to further stabilize the foundation by restacking the stone boulders that are left underneath, filling in from one of the collapsed stone walls behind the barn as needed, and sealing up the gaps between the stones. We’ll also excavate to add below-frost-line drain tile and a water barrier around the back of the house, west side of the ell, and front of the barn, draining any water away from the barn altogether.
Once that’s done, we can patch and stabilize the bents using interior cables and turnbuckles. From the outside, you would only notice the plates and nuts from the cables going through the wall, but many old homes and barns have these. You most often see old brick homes with these plates fashioned into stars, or other decorative shapes. This may buy another 75-100 years, hopefully.
No matter what, the shed addition needs to come off as soon as possible. It’s sagging heavily, and sinking into the muck from decades of being a working livestock barn, and it’s dragging the rest of the original, old, historic barn down with it.
We’re meeting with another contractor later today, but for now, we need to make a Home Depot run. Being almost a half hour to town, we try to maximize our trips as much as possible- Home Depot, ALDI, Walmart, and a bike shop (my mountain bike’s brakes got jammed up during the move).
Thanks for following along. Leave us a comment or question, and we’ll do our best to respond. See you next time!
***UPDATE*** (07/20/18)- we found our guy! We found a contractor who can rebuild the foundation, address the water drainage issues, and shore up the structure, giving it another 100+ years. AND all within our budget! YAY!
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