Building A Barn Is Like Building A Life

My husband always says, "The barn is the heart of the homestead." So true. We needed one and especially after we got two of our horses. As you can see in this picture, Georgie Girl was waiting for my husband to finish it so she could have a place to go inside. She was used to a barn and spending her first year here outside was not good for her.

First the lean-to was finished so that they could get inside until the barn could be finished. In this post, The Homestead Barn - Part One I told about the lean-to. Then he went to work on the downstairs of the barn. The roof at this point was flat and needed to be cleaned off when the snow was piling up.

I posted these photos today because I realized there are times when we think we have so much to do and haven't done enough yet. We put too many expectations on our shoulders. But look at this barn! We did it all ourselves. Well, I didn't build it, my husband did it all. But I was there with him all the way. 

Life is like the building of the barn. One little step at a time. You get one thing done and then go on to another step. We do this in all our chores around here. Do what you can and then go on. Don't let the whole job hold you down because you think it is too much. In the second post about our barn, The Homestead Barn - Part Two, I went into more detail on each area of the barn. Life is like that.

As we finished each part, we were proud and kept looking at it. Then we'd come up with more ideas of how to do more things, if we had this or that. Isn't that what we do in life? Always changing things. Always adding things. Always wanting more. Take time to enjoy what you have built. Live with it awhile!

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

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

Memories Of My Life - Chapter Ten - Building Our Barn

Wooded Area Is Now The Paddock

When we first moved here in 1999, this whole side area was all thickly wooded. You couldn't even see in there due to all the trees. I used to go in there to scrounge for wood while my husband was at work during the day. Nikita and I would spend hours out there picking up sticks and dead wood and carrying it into the house to keep the stove going. As you can see there was no barn. To the side you can see a little bit of what would eventually be our barn. At the time of this photo, we hadn't brought our horses home yet.

Waiting For The Lean-To Be Finished!

After the horses were here as I told before, we were hit with a bad tornado that took out most of the trees on our property. They lived through 2000 with no barn or building of any kind. Georgie Girl decided enough was enough, and she wanted a barn or something. So she refused to come up to the area where we fed them. I had to carry her food to her or she would not eat. So my husband scraped some money together and started working on the lean-to. You can't see it too well in this picture, but she came up this area after he started working on it. She would stand there and watch him work on it. He finished it and she and Dark Shadow loved the lean-to. At that time we did not have our third horse.

Can you find the horse in this picture?

Well as you can see we finally got the top of the barn up. We built it little by little. The horses were already using the downstairs. But we had no place to store hay or anything else. 

Plastic Covering The Floor Upstairs.

It was a lot of work and my husband built it completely with only using manual tools and his chainsaw to cut the wood.

Roof In Place.

This is what it looked like when we finally got the roof on. That made all the difference in the world as I am sure you can imagine. 

Roomy Upstairs!

It;s big and roomy inside. And now it has our solar panels on top of the roof. The wiring goes through the barn, and underground to the house. We still need to get the doors on, the porch and the box stalls. The porch will have a platform on the roof so my husband can clean off the solar panels without having to climb on a ladder to do it.

As It Looks Today With Solar Panels On Top Snow Covered!

Today, this is what it looks like. The barn is the heart of your homestead. And I am pleased with our barn. Now we are onto working on the house. It has made our life a lot easier. If you have animals they need some kind of protection from the outside elements. Even though when it is cold or especially, snowy, the horses stay outside. But the object here is that they can come in if they are so inclined. 

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole