This Old Barn

[quicksandfarmer]

At the peak of the gable is a lifting point that was used to hoist hay into the loft:

I have to figure out how to treat it. It needs to come off to remove the shingles behind it. My inclination is to retain it, but I think it's pretty cheesy to have it bolted over the shingles. So I'm thinking of putting a block of trim there and bolting through that. A lot will depend on how heavy it turns out to be and how easily it comes off.

I don't envision ever using it to lift anything heavy, it would be ornamental and historic interest.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

This is a scrap of the sheathing I removed, I took a picture because I was struck at how tight the rings are.

 

[EddieWalker]

At the peak of the gable is a lifting point that was used to hoist hay into the loft:
View attachment 1012465

I have to figure out how to treat it. It needs to come off to remove the shingles behind it. My inclination is to retain it, but I think it's pretty cheesy to have it bolted over the shingles. So I'm thinking of putting a block of trim there and bolting through that. A lot will depend on how heavy it turns out to be and how easily it comes off.

I don't envision ever using it to lift anything heavy, it would be ornamental and historic interest.

I had to go back and look at your other pictures to see the thing for lifting hay bales. I never noticed it before. Now that you've pointed it out, it looks out of place to me. Something that I can't un-see, and think looks out of place.

It's your place, but with it being so difficult to get up there, why would you want something that has no use, doesn't look very good, and could potentially lead to an issue if it ever allows water to get through it?

For historical reasons, I would display it inside the building. Or just through it away and never think about it again.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I had to go back and look at your other pictures to see the thing for lifting hay bales. I never noticed it before. Now that you've pointed it out, it looks out of place to me. Something that I can't un-see, and think looks out of place.

It's your place, but with it being so difficult to get up there, why would you want something that has no use, doesn't look very good, and could potentially lead to an issue if it ever allows water to get through it?

For historical reasons, I would display it inside the building. Or just through it away and never think about it again.

That would certainly save work as well.

 

[WinterDeere]

I've had barns with these, in fact one of similar age to yours (1865), but they always overhung a door (not a window), and were always a cantilevered wood beam, usually a 3x6 or 4x6 timber that ran way back into the structure.

If you believe this part to be original, I'd be in favor of keeping it. If a later mod, it's still part of the building history, and up for discussion on whether to keep or toss. It's not a weather intrusion issue, it's so high under the overhang that it's not going to see a lot of run-off from the siding, where the hardware is making its penetration. You could easily dado the top of a wide plank to accept the upper coarse of siding, and do the reverse on the bottom edge to overhang the course below. Not a huge issue, in fact that's how I mounted my gooseneck barn lights on cedar horizontal siding.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I've had barns with these, in fact one of similar age to yours (1865), but they always overhung a door (not a window), and were always a cantilevered wood beam, usually a 3x6 or 4x6 timber that ran way back into the structure.

If you believe this part to be original, I'd be in favor of keeping it. If a later mod, it's still part of the building history, and up for discussion on whether to keep or toss. It's not a weather intrusion issue, it's so high under the overhang that it's not going to see a lot of run-off from the siding, where the hardware is making its penetration. You could easily dado the top of a wide plank to accept the upper coarse of siding, and do the reverse on the bottom edge to overhang the course below. Not a huge issue, in fact that's how I mounted my gooseneck barn lights on cedar horizontal siding.

I think that window was originally a small door, that's what other similar barns in the area have.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I had to go back and look at your other pictures to see the thing for lifting hay bales. I never noticed it before. Now that you've pointed it out, it looks out of place to me. Something that I can't un-see, and think looks out of place.

It's your place, but with it being so difficult to get up there, why would you want something that has no use, doesn't look very good, and could potentially lead to an issue if it ever allows water to get through it?

For historical reasons, I would display it inside the building. Or just through it away and never think about it again.

Well it looks like the question is moot. For some reason I thought it was lag-bolted, but I got up there and it's through-bolted. The bolts were rusty so I had to cut them with a metal blade in an oscillating tool -- one blade per bolt!

To put it back I'd have to have someone on a ladder inside the barn, and I don't have a helper. I couldn't lag bolt it back because the holes that are there already for the through bolts are where the lag bolts would have to go. So that's that.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Shingling is finished!

Around here, it's traditional to turn the last shingle at the peak upside down, that gives a full thickness of shingle behind the peak of the rake boards. Usually it's cut it into diamond shape to give a decorative look:

I'm going to caulk and touch up the paint a bit while I have the scaffolding up, then I have to take down the scaffold and clean up. And put the windows back in. But this pretty much wraps up this season of production.

 

[Thall303]

Beautiful work !

 

[EddieWalker]

That was a big job!!! It really looks nice.

 

[oosik]

My 80 acres was part of a government homestead allotment. Homesteaded in 1892. Unfortunately - there never was a picture taken of the old barn.

This oil painting is of the old, temporary, homestead house and chicken coop. It took the homesteader about nine months to build the permanent house.

 

[WinterDeere]

My house was built on a Penn's land grant, as were those of most of my family, early 1700's. The very oldest among them were just squatters, they built wherever the hell they wanted in the 1690's, and only came into legal ownership of the land they'd been living and farming on 30-40 years later. Another house, which my great-grandparents later owned, was somehow built the land Wm. Penn had intended to set aside for his own house. Surprisingly, he was gracious enough to move to another location 15 miles away, when he built his home here in SE PA.

I believe that his son(s) actually handed out or sold more land grants than Wm. Penn himself, and one interesting thing about these grants is that they were often done on condition that the recipient build on and live on the land. In the case of my house, the grant given in the 1730's was later revoked for not satisfying all of the conditions, given to another neighbor and then eventually sold to the man who built the largest part of the house in 1775. You can see an earlier and smaller stone structure that presently makes up one corner of our present walk-out basement, which was seems to have been the main living level of this earlier 1730's owner's house.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

That was a big job!!! It really looks nice.

Thanks. Sometimes I do things just to see if I can do them.

The hardest part was hauling my old body up and down the scaffolding multiple times a day.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Took the scaffolding down today and cleaned up. Put the windows back in. Snapped this picture:

In 2010 I had the front shingles done. My neighbor painted a picture at that time, this photo is an homage to that: