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I built my coop on an old hay wagon. I can move it around the fields so there is always new bugs and grass for them to eat The roost is at the back of the wagon and has 1x2 welded wire under it so the poop falls to the ground. The remainder of the floor is 2x2s with 1 1/2" gap between them so...

When I was setting my 16 foot post for my workshop I lift one end of the pole over the back of the forks on my tractor. With the forks close together to help steady it when it was vertical. I used part of the chain to hook to the post under the forks and do the lifting. The other end I used to...

Here is another set of plans for Bluebird houses from the Virginia Bluebird Society. I have built several of these houses. I can usually get two nestings if I clean out the old nest after the birds have fledged. Rick

The mantle looks good. I think I would raise it up some so that there is some stone between the mantle and the firebox. The building code here in VA says Section 1001.11 of the IRC (2006 edition), "Exception 4: exposed combustible mantels or trim may be placed directly on the masonry...

The Barn painting is DONE!! I now have to install the garage door. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions? I have already read the instructions Lee. Glad to have the painting done. Rick Saw this guy when I was walking back to the house.

I have been busy painting the barn with the nice weather that we have had. I have gotten all of the walls painted and am now working on doing the trim. This is one part of the project that is slow going. The west gable end on the building is now complete. The scaffold is down and you can see...

Between rain showers yesterday my wife and I managed to get one side of the building painted. I was doing the cutting in and she was using the roller. We only worked about an hour in the late afternoon after the morning rain. Hoping to get a break tomorrow and get some more done. Rick

I am nearing completion of my 30 x 40 pole barn. I have been doing most all of the work myself. My building has a metal roof, trusses on four foot centers, OSB sheathing with 4 x10' Hardie panels as siding, 5 windows, a man door and a garage door and a concrete floor with radiant tubing and...

I got some help yesterday so we were able to get the siding up on the gable end. Over the weekend I had been working on getting the battens on the building. A time consuming job as I cut each one to fit and then primed the end and then nailed them to the wall. The gable siding went well...

Couple more pictures of the progress. I worked on putting the trim around the windows today. Working my way up this side of the building. My helper had football practice today so I could not get the gable siding on. Rick

Well, we got all of the siding up on one of the gable ends of the building. I spent a couple of hours doing little odds and ends to the gable before I take the scaffolding down. I caulked the gaps between the trim and the soffit. Also puts some screws in the side of the roof metal trim. That...

Here is a picture of the Hardie panel siding that shows the texture really well. The sun was low and at an angle to this wall so it shows the texture well. Rick

Made some more progress on siding the building. I have siding on the lower 10 feet of all of the building now and have started working on the gable ends of the barn. I still have battens and trim to put on the walls but we have made some good progress. Rick

Yesterday and and today I had some help from my neighbors son to help put up the some of the Hardie panels. We worked only a few hours each day because the heat and humidity have been awfull lately. The heat index has been over 107 each day. We made quite a bit of progress in spite of the...

I have not posted for a while now. I got side tracked on to a fence project that was a hundred plus feet of new board fence and a thousand feet of new wire fence. Along the line I had put my camera in a jacket and could not find it until recently. I got all the sheathing on and last month got...

I have been building a new barn and would like to have water at it. There is water at my old barn a couple hundred feet away but that water line has sprung a leak again. It is 3/4 in 100psi plastic coil pipe. The well is 800 feet away at the house. I am thinking about replacing it, as every...

Pete, Next time you have to set those 16' 6x6 by yourself, chain them to your pallet forks. It is a lot easier on the back. Rick

Today was a productive day. I had two people helping me today. We finished putting the rest of the roof metal up. The building inspector when he was out to inspect before my concrete floor was poured told me about what permanent bracing was needed on the trusses. He made a point that many...

The sheathing is called Zip System. It is an OSB board with a water resistive barrier permanently attached to the OSB. All you have to do is tape the seams with their tape. I decided to use it because I new whatever I put up would be exposed to the elements for awhile before I got my siding...

Yesterday I started roughing in the window openings and then putting sheathing on the wall. I got most of the sheathing up on the gable wall. I still have a piece to put up over the windows. Tomorrow I will have help and I hope to finish the last of the roof. The big nor'easter that is...

The winds and bad weather gods cooperated with me for a while today. I got my scaffold set up along the side of the building. Got the fascia boards and drip edge on and started putting on the metal roof. I would stand on the scaffold and pull a sheet of tin off of the pallet of tin that the...

At last all of the trusses are up. After spending a good part of the day yesterday shoveling snow and ice off the building floor I got some help today putting up the trusses. The boom on the tractor worked well and all eleven trusses are up. I have to put in some more of the permanent bracing...

First thing today I worked on getting the gable truss completely straight and vertical. I added more braces to the ground and pushed and pulled most of the waves out of the top chord. I got the second truss up and started bracing it when I realized that something was not right. My braces on...

OOPS, While I was moving the gable truss into the barn I was concentrating on what the truss was doing in the light breeze. As I eased through the garage door there was a loud explosion as the open glass door on the tractor hit the 6x6 post. Not a good thing. I never realized how much glass is...

The boom on the front of the tractor works. I had to turn around after I picked the gable truss up and it felt like I was a little light on my rear wheels even though I had my box blade on. I set it back down and went and put my bush hog on. With the extra weight I did not have any problem...

Today I made a boom for my front end loader so that I can lift my trusses into place. I had a piece of LVL beam that was left over from our house renovation last year. I also had a couple of rough cut 2x6 floor joists. I put them all together with timberlock screws to make a 15 foot boom. I...

Wow time flies, the holidays and sending my wife off on her annual trip to Antarctica have made the last couple of weeks fly by. I finally got back to working on the barn today. I decided to put the sheathing on the gable truss before I put it up. So I spent a couple of hours cutting and...

Tough day today, our golden that we have had for thirteen years died today. She has had cancer and had been eating next to nothing for the last two weeks but some how she found the energy to still go on walks around our farm though they were a lot shorter then in the past. She had a knack...

Well I got a concrete floor today. The day started out really cold for down here about 20 but it warmed up to the mid 50,s The first concrete off the truck was steaming. Things moved along well. A couple of guys that know what they are doing are amazing. They poured the 30x 40 slab, and 8x10...

Busy couple of days. I have been putting rebar and pex tubing in to get ready to have the concrete floor poured. Tomorrow is the big day the finishers will be here first thing in the morning and the concrete will begin arriving at 8:00. The weather is supposed to be perfect. It is supposed...

Today I was putting foam board in. It was a lot of work cutting in around all of the posts. Tomorrow I will start putting in the pex tubing and the rebar. I still need to make a form for the concrete apron outside of the garage door. I am hoping that I can get it all ready for the concrete...

I have been making slow steady progress. Yesterday I was putting in my 4 inches + of gravel. I worked by the tractor lights in the dark to finish leveling it out. Last night after I finished I realized that I should put in a conduit to bring the electric into the building. I am going to...

Making more progress on the barn. I got the 2 x 10's attached to the posts on one side of the barn. Most of the girts are attached to that side and the end of the barn. The weather men are calling for rain tonight into tomorrow morning so I covered up some areas to reduce the making of mud...

I am making some progress with putting in my posts. I figure I will get most of them done by tomorrow. The tractor is a big help holding the posts while I get them straight and back filled with concrete and dirt. Here are pictures from yesterday and today.

Yes I had the batter boards still in place so I took your suggestion and offset the string from the post. That worked well. I managed to get two corner post in this afternoon. It took awhile to figure out how best to move the bottom of the post to get it lined up straight where I needed it...

A couple of more pictures of the property and old barn New barn pad site

I have been reading the posts of everyone building barns and houses for a long time and and want to thank Motorseven, Obed, Bindian and BoFuller and others for motivating me to take on these projects by myself. Your projects are great. I finally have broken ground for a new pole barn/workshop...

We stopped using heating oil last year and I have been pumping the heating oil out of the tank into my transfer tank to fuel my tractor. The heating oil tank is now down to about 8 inches in the vertical tank. My question is how low can I pump out the tank without getting into whatever lurks...

After reading previous posts about whether you should change the transmission oil at 50 hour or just change the filters I decided to go ahead and change the oil. After looking at all the metal that had collected on the magnet of the hydraulic filter I think that it was worth the expense of...