The Homestead Barn - Part Two

Taken from the front upstairs door of the barn.

We built our barn little by little. My husband did all the work, I just gave him ideas or fed him the fuel to keep him going. He used the chainsaw for cutting the wood but other than that, he did the whole building with manual tools. No electric tools at all. We desperately needed a place to store hay. In the beginning we had our old van that had died. It was one of those work vans and it was a great vehicle, that we used until it would not move ever again. We stored hay in it and it held a lot. It was a sad day when the junkyard came to pick it up. We also tried to store hay on pallets under a tarp.................ruined most of it! It got moldy. Not a good way to store hay. Especially for horses, as they will not touch bad hay with a ten foot tongue!

Lots of room upstairs!

Having a peaked roof makes the snow fall right off. Now that we have our solar panels on there though, it is not rolling off quite so easily. So my husband bought a roof rake from Amazon and is using that. He has to pull the truck up close to the barn and stand in the back. He had an accident with doing it on the ladder so that is not an option. We have plenty of room as you can see for hay and many other things in the upstairs of the barn.

Hay is for horses!

The corner you see from this photo is where my husband keeps his tools and stuff. It isn't organized as well as he'd like, but hasn't had a chance to work in there much. Eventually, he wants a little building for his tools and for his workshop. Not upstairs. Then he can work on his Harley right there too. Maybe put our extra wood stove in there or use the kerosene heater so he can work in the winter too. He likes to have projects. Hasn't had much space to work on them until we completed the upstairs of the barn.

Cool chairs! 

The chair on the left my husband made out of two boards. You can take them apart and carry them anywhere. The other chair, I have a whole set of, and so does everyone in our family. My mother-in-law would pick up old lawn chairs from the garbage and she made the chairs using macramé.

Backside View Of The Barn

The trouble with horses as I have mentioned many times on here, is that they like to eat wood. Now our girls get plenty of food and hay. Often during the day, we take them out more hay and more water. They eat grain twice a day. But they get bored or something, and will chew on their barn. They chew on the wood that is around their water buckets. They ruin everything. Trees too. So we have moved their fence many times so they can't reach the trees. Georgie and Dark Shadow have very long necks and can reach things you would think they couldn't possibly reach. On the back of the barn you will see those holes in the board and that is what they did. I had to move the fence back so they could not reach it. It is very frustrating to say the least. 

Front View How It Looks Presently.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing our barn. In my blog stats I have had many people searching for directions on how to build a homestead barn. I can't really give you directions as my husband just built it as he went along. He worked with a crushed right arm and two very bad shoulders, so I don't really know how he did as much as he did. But he paced himself, and didn't work nonstop for days. He would work a little and take a break. Sometimes his breaks were for weeks. His son helped him on the peak and that is the only help he ever got. Not putting the metal on, but building the peak. He had to put the whole roof on by himself with no help from anyone. I think he did a great job!

If you are searching for plans to build one, there are some very good books out that we had used. Our basic barn is a pole building, so just search for pole buildings. We are pretty happy with our result so far.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

The Homestead Barn - Part One

This is the lean-to which is connected to the barn. The horses can hang out in the lean-to or go in the barn on their own. It is their choice. The logs on the front of the barn my husband cut and used his draw knife to take the bark off. In the beginning all they had was the lean-to. All three could fit in there nicely. All together like that in cold weather, they generate heat on one another. Cozy! The problem is that the area in front of the lean-to fills up with water and mud when it rains. Then no one, especially Georgie Girl likes to walk through mud. She hates it! So prissy......

This is the inside downstairs of the barn. Eventually, I want to have three box stalls. Right now the horses are all together in the end of the barn. They stay inside all summer during the day, and go out at night. They hate hot weather and bugs. You can see how it can be easily converted for other livestock, such as goats, chickens, sheep or even a cow. Once you go inside you see it has plenty of room for whatever you need.

This is Georgie Girl and Dark Shadow in the stall. There is plenty of room in here for three horses. But Dark Shadow is so mean to Tawny, that I need to have a separate stall for her for those times. When the weather is bad I can put her inside and not worry about her.

This is the barn from the outside. The door you see is open. But most of the time we keep it closed. Up above is the door we throw the hay in from the truck. It doesn't have a door yet, but will sometime in the future. We had planned on closing the stairs in and putting our feed cans under the stairs. That way they would be secure. Horses will make a big mess if they get into your supplies. Or if they get into the feed they have been known to eat themselves to death. My brother's horse did that due to carelessness on the part of a friend who didn't know better.

This is the foundation for the porch on the barn. We hope to be able to sit here in the summer and hang out with the horses. It will have a roof that will actually be a platform, so we can clean off the solar panels in the winter. Tomorrow I will show you the upstairs of the barn. Be sure to come back!

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

Building Our Barn

Today I have a lot of things going on. My husband has been building our barn, little by little as we could afford it. Building supplies are pretty expensive these days. Our three horses have been so patient. But they badly need the barn, as they need to be inside during the cold weather. Thoroughbreds don't do so well out in the windy cold weather we get around here. They do have a three sided building, we call the lean to. They use that. The barn is what they are all waiting for. The barn is completed as far as the sides go, using rough cut wood from the local sawmill. The front is logs. The upstairs floor and framing is up. 

Last night my stepson brought his dog over to let him stay for a couple of days. He said so that he could get some exercise out in the country. After he left, we found out the real reason was because he is infested with fleas. I think he probably thought we wouldn't know as we have animals and they probably have fleas too. Our animals have not had any fleas since we have lived here. We have bare floors and fleas have no where to hide.

Our dog Nikita has very long hair and I just dread to think of her getting infested too. I think that cats don't get dog fleas and I'm hoping I'm not wrong on that. As my Siamese cat Nutmeg is 16 years old and suffers with Hypothyroidism and could be susceptible to them. Why would someone do this to us? Thinking that we would not know that he brought the fleas into our house? His dog is a good dog and I don't blame him. It's not his fault. It's his owner's fault. I think  people think if you have some animals and you live in the country you must naturally have a flea problem too. I think the people that live in cities, towns or even neighborhoods in the country where the homes are close together are the ones with the flea problems. They infest the ground too.

Copyright © 2005 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2005  Kathleen G. Lupole

Updated 2024