3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

Wow, thanks for the compliments guys!
No tours or tickets but you are welcome to visit if you're ever in the area. I'm sure you all have nice homes and now Loretta and I will have one too. It's our retirement dream home and been a long time coming, so we are really enjoying this last part of our lives. If only we could have done this when we were younger.

I must admit it was Loretta who picked out most of the lighting fixtures and other stuff. She has much better taste than I do. She's spent a lot of hours on th Internet looking up all that rural outdoors stuff and making lists. All I did was nod my head...ok, I helped a little I don't know why they stopped short on the stairs like that. They did the same with the breezeway walk. I hope they put those extra steps in there when it's done?

On Friday evening we were checking the home out and decided to sit on the decks. It was about 7:00pm so it was still very light but peaceful. We were pretending like we lived there and were talking when a deer came walking up that trail below us, the one that goes along the ravine. We just sat there and watched for about 5 minutes while we talked. The deer never gave it a second thought and didn't even look up. It just walked and grazed it's way out of sight.
Very cool to see that.

 

[3RRL]

I got some good pictures of the barn this visit too. When I was unloading the machinery.
They had poured the concrete for the man doors and also for the large bay doors too. After taking all the boxes of fans to the house and unloading some of the smaller machines, it was time to take the Bridgeport milling machine off. The barn is 40' x 50' so it's the largest shop building I've owned since I sold the 27,000sq ft plant in 1996 when I retired. You can see there is enough room for the big 55hp Kama in there, but from some views it looks like it fills the bay door openings.



The Milling machines weigh between 2200lbs and 2800lbs, depending on how big the tables are and how it's equipped. This one has the heavier vari-speed head, longer 48" table, digital readout system and also automatic feed motor, so it's on the heavy end of the scale. My Chevalier Mill is heavier still. I wasn't sure if the Koyker loader would pick it up or not? I dug out the front of the bay door so the trailer and ramp would sit almost flat and I blocked the back of the trailer so it wouldn't flip over when I drove on it. LOL ... I didn't even know if the trailer would hold the Kama or if the ramp would buckle so I put some extra plywood down on it.
Strapping the mill like I did, I was barely able to lift the mill up. I drove it off the trailer and placed it to the rear of the barn. That was the first time I drove the tractor inside the barn. It was really cool knowing I"ll have a nice sheltered place to do my future maintenance and repairs in.

 

[3RRL]

Then it was time to get the 4' x 8' steel table from the front of the trailer. I calculated it's weight to be about 1200lbs. I got a very neat picture of it while doing it in the evening hours, but ended up waiting to move it until the next day. You can see all the tractor lights that were added and the driving lights I installed on the trailer and truck for backing up. It lit up everything. But still, I thought it prudent to do the actual move the next morning.



The entire time I had the trailer blocked with wheel chocks and connected to the Silverado. I had also blocked up the rear of the trailer frame so it wouldn't squish when I drove the 7,800lb Kama onto it. Like I said before, I had put plywood over the expanded metal ramp too. Here's some shots of how the trailer sits in the dug out area and how it's blocked up. I was amazed that I still had 1" on each side of the wheel wells for the fronts to fit between. There is 79" between them so the fronts are 77" wide on the Kama.

 

[tommu56]

Rob the pictuers are great as usual!

I guess with the shop split up it wil put your tractor projects on hiatis not that you dont have other work cut out for you at this point.

tommu

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Rob, a few posts back it was said that there were some things that looked pretty good. I would like to try and clarify and say that just about anything is going to look good at your place. Does that make sense? The surroundings, the home are so overwhelming, heck even I would look good there.

 

[3RRL]

Rob the pictuers are great as usual!

I guess with the shop split up it wil put your tractor projects on hiatis not that you dont have other work cut out for you at this point.

tommu

Thanks Tom, yes I will be cooling it with the tractor projects for a little while now. Most everything is in order with them anyway, so that is good. I see you got home and were able to view the photos Ok then?

 

[3RRL]

Rob, a few posts back it was said that there were some things that looked pretty good. I would like to try and clarify and say that just about anything is going to look good at your place. Does that make sense? The surroundings, the home are so overwhelming, heck even I would look good there.

There's no doubt about you looking good there Brian.
I have proof!

 

[weldingisfun]

Wow, thanks for the compliments guys!
No tours or tickets but you are welcome to visit if you're ever in the area. I'm sure you all have nice homes and now Loretta and I will have one too. It's our retirement dream home and been a long time coming, so we are really enjoying this last part of our lives. If only we could have done this when we were younger.

If you could have had all this when you were younger, you would not have appreciated it as much as you do now. There is truth to the old saying that, "Good things come to those who wait."
This is your reward for all the hard work done while you were young. And, it is one beautiful reward. Enjoy it, you have earned it.

 

[3RRL]

Thanks Lee, I guess you are probably right about that.
We are enjoying (and appreciating) this project very much. Some of it is pretty tough work and getting older doesn't help with the aches and pains, if you know what I mean.
BTW, what is that in your Avatar?
Is that a Nubian or maybe a Boer goat?

 

[3RRL]

These are a couple short videos moving that big table off the trailer and into the barn. You can see all the stuff we have in the barn already in that 2nd video. The barn looks pretty big on the inside and there's a lot of room, but I still had to watch it so I wouldn't crash into something in there. Also notice how good the lighting is just from the sky lights. There will be fluorescent lights installed later, but they are not up yet. It's probably a good thing or I might have wiped them out.





After that, I moved the table into an area that was out of the way next to the bathroom, so there would still be room for the next load of machinery and household goods. The last photo shows the front of the barn (truck and trailer unloaded.)