Dave H (MI)
Well-known Member
I try to tackle something major every year late in the summer when things are slow. This year I decided it was time to start rebuilding the old dairy barn up by the road. It succumbed to an electrical fire many years ago. Close to 30 Holsteins were still inside. One of the surviving sons of the original homesteading family stops by from time to time to visit. He went in the east end of the barn and released all the cows along the south wall. Fire was too intense to get the ones on the north wall. They are buried just outside where I put the large opening. He said his dad was frantic...thought he burned with the cows. Only the milk house survived along with the north and south block walls. Those walls collapsed over several years...they had no rebar or grout in them...leaving only a stub of a wall headed south and west from the back of the milk house. The milk house was renovated by an interim owner and is now a sauna. I am rebuilding the 60 x 36 barn to use for small storage and shop shop space. The smaller tractors will go in there. I have a larger shed in the back where I store equipment. Took me 3 months of spare time to lay all those block. Just grouted the last row yesterday. Sits on a really good footing. I drilled in rebar and did bond beams horizontally and vertically as required. Steel lintels on doors and windows are part of the last bond beam. Don't know how many block total yet. I know there were 14 pallets of 8x8x16 alone and a lot of half block were used around doors and windows as well as 4x8x16 hollow core for the pilasters (added for visual effect because the original barn had them). Going to timber frame the rest and put a gambrel roof on the top. Pictures of the original were used to design it. Very popular project with people driving by. Original barn had paintings of the cows on the block. Most common question passersby ask is "will you paint the cows back on it?"