Chevy and GMC Duramax Diesel Forum banner

The Barn Build (Super pic heavy)

42K views 152 replies 85 participants last post by  SKT 
#1 ·
Here it is. I have this build on another forum and I'm just copy/pasting the large events to here. So, if a post seems scrambled it's probably just me rushing through this lol. There are a billion pictures and about an hours worth of reading so if you don't have time, make time later :drink

Alright, some of you have been asking about this and I finally have a minute to start putting together a thread. For those of you who don't know, I bought some property earlier this year. It's 8 acres with a house on it, that isn't worth salvaging to say the least. There is trash inside from who knows when and a skunk decided to start living in the basement. SO, it's getting burned down.
ANYWAYS, the property has a few shitty sheds that aren't worth mentioning and also a 32'x60' barn. The barn has never had animals in it, but was set up for cows. My dad, who has been a carpenter for 40 years, said that it's one of the nicest barns he's seen in his many years. The intial plan was to make the barn into a house and live in there, but after doing some research, the amount of money put into it would have been way too much. Just insulating the whole thing would have been $16k. So, I decided to build it into my shop. Let us begin.
When I first came out to this place 2 years ago to check it out (it was a foreclosure) I had my doubts. It was overgrown with trees, there were cockleburrs everywhere, trash was all scattered around, and it was kind of erie to be honest. But, after my dad told me the place was up for sale just a few months ago I had a buddy who is an appraiser stop out and tell me what he thought it was worth. He told me it was worth around $60k or so, since it's an amazing location and very secluded. So, when I went to submit an offer I started low and everyone thought I was insane.
I offered the bank $30k and a week later they counter offered with $32k. SOLD.
The inital plan was to clean up the place, clean up the house and flip it. But, I've grown pretty attached to the property. Since I bought it, I have worked out there every Fri-Sun.
Anyways, TL;DR I bought a barn, here's some progress pics.

Here's one of the first pics I took of the barn.


Shortly after we brought in a Bobcat and started doing some clearing.





This is what the barn looked like when I bought it. There was everything in there from magazines, to shoes, even a couple playgirl magazines...


And here's after a few sweeps with the bobcat.




Then I cut out the stansions(sp?*) since I wouldn't be needing those..


As you can tell it needed something on the roof, so I priced out some steel and after a day and a half we had it buttoned up. We were going to tear off all the shingles and lay it on, but decided to strip it with 1x4's and lay it over the shingles so it wouldn't take us forever and less to get rid of. It took us about 10 hrs to do and it couldn't have gone smoother.








As you can tell from some earlier pictures, all the brush around the barn was cleaned up and leveled out. I had a buddy come in and cut up all the stumps.


The next task was to raise the hay loft up 5' so I could have 12' ceilings. The inital plan was to have house movers come in, lift it up, support it and be done. Well they charge $1500 a day to just show up and then after materials and whatnot I was looking at $10k just for lifting the floor. I said fuk that and decided to just create a new floor 5' higher than the old one and then tear out the old loft. I'm doing only 40' of the 60' just so it isn't rediculously expensive to heat in the winter and all that jazz. Here's the new floor, which is basically just the new ceiling since it won't be able to be used other than a little storage if I throw down some plywood ontop of it.

 
See less See more
21
#2 ·
After that the next project was tearing out the old floor. My dad took his skillsaw and made cuts in the floor every 8', that way I could keep some boards and make whatever out of them. I stood underneath and popped them loose with a 2x4. Well after about 2 hours I was pissed off and decided there's gotta be a better way.


So, dad grabbed a chainsaw and started cutting down sections




Got the upper windows in. They're nothing special (fleet farm $30 special) but all I needed was for them to fill the hole. They look pretty good too imo.

After that I finished tearing out the rest of the hay loft. We just cut them down, pounded out the boards and salvaged what we could. The rest, as you can see stacked in a pile, was burned in my silo. It's an empty silo and works incredibly for burning.



Grandpa stopped out to give his opinion lol. He knew the guy who built this barn back in the day. He was a carpenter for his entire career and has a lot of experience in barns. It's always good to talk with him.
 
#3 ·
My dad cut out where the concrete is going to be split. The back half will be left alone, since it will be cold storage, the rest will be poured and layed with piping for heated floors. My dad also cut the wall where the overhead door will be.



Here's my silo. I cut up a log this afternoon so it could hold my coffee lol.


I put a 1x4 that I painted white between the two opening BIG doors on the barn, I wanted to keep them closed and the birds out, now that I can't get to the ropes anyway.
 
#4 ·
My uncle, who runs Bobcats for a living came in with his jackhammer and started poppin holes in the floor, then my dad started removing the old cement. They got everything out of there in maybe 2-3 hours.




Then I had a construction company come in and remove all the old cement, which took 3 loads since the driver was a puss.


Then we drank beer.
Then me and my dad started pulling up the underground wire running from the old powerline to the house. If I were to guess it's about 150'. All we did was stick the forks of the bobcat into the ground and trench up along the whole thing, leaving about 6" of dirt over the wire. Then we wrapped the wire around the forks and I held on while my dad backed up. Easier said than done but we got it out.




Idk what this picture is but bam, barn pic.


Did a little adventuring and found a chisel plow, hay rake, some old pumps, milk cart all sorts of cool shit.


International Harvester even.
 
#5 ·
Got the dirt dug down as far as we needed and there was no way we could screed the dirt, since it's hard clay. So, I ordered some gravel and we put a layer of that down and started screeding. We got all the stakes in and my drain made also. Oh, also I cut out another section that I'm going to pour also, and setup my mechanical room in there so it's not taking up room in the shop.







Also, took the doors off the front. I'll be rehanging them in the back.



Bored the holes for the electrical and for the water lines.


Foam and rebar showed up.




The plumber came out and we got all the holes augered in and the pipes ran outside. We got all the piping done inside also.


 
#31 ·
Hey man the logo on that dump truck looks familiar to me....is it Eggies (or sounds like) construction from Pelican Rapids MN by chance?
 
#6 ·
We got the front all notched out and knocked down. We support it with 2x12's and it seems to be holding just fine.


The electricians also showed up and ran my underground wire from the powerline to the inside of my barn.



Screeded off the gravel and a few of the stakes put back in that were damaged while running the bobcat.


Me and my dad then threw down the foam. Only took about an hour and a half.







Then these guys showed up.

Pretty crazy how this huge pumper truck fit it's arm inside the barn through a 10' high door. He can put the cement wherever the hell you want.


Didn't get any pictures after this because I had to help lol.
But it was poured and we sent the helpers home by 9:15 and we started at 8.

While my dad was finishing off the inside I took a paintbrush to the outside. I took some cement and water and mixed it up and globbed it on the walls. Only reason I did this is to seal it up and fill in the cracks. For the cracks I took a ball of cement and sand and water mixture and filled them in.



I absolutely hate how it looks so I'll probably end up putting a coat of gray paint over it.
 
#7 ·
This is what the walls looked like before hand.

So we covered them in plastic.

We then tacked foam up.

I have all my windows marked, I just don't know which ones I'm going to eliminate yet.



All the foam on the walls was free. A construction company that my dad talks to quite often was just going to throw it away so we snagged it.
After we got the foam up we started putting down the baseboards.

And we got one stud up lol


We had some pretty wild storms coming through so I threw an old tarp in front of the door.


Didn't keep the birds out tho...


These little peckers better hatch soon or they're gonna be trapped..



This is where I stand as of now.
Next weekend we are going to throw up the walls on the inside.
I will keep you guys updated!
 
#8 ·
Jesus looking good! I didn't read it all but grazed through but good pics!


Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App
 
#11 ·
man that's awesome. making really good progress it looks like! always been an idea of mine to redo an old barn, but working out of town year round really puts a damper on that idea. keep up the good work, looks like its gonna be a pretty badass shop!
 
#20 ·
There's 20'x32' left of the hay loft in the back, I'm planning on making it into my mancave. :drink
My opinion you kind of ruined that old barn. should have just re sheeted the roof stained the wood sides and fixed the block wall. then you could have thrown some cows in the stanchions and start making some hay to put in the mow. But this is all coming from a farmer and im just glad you didn't let it fall in
I'm no farmer and don't plan on having animals so there's no point in that. It was either this, or tear it down and build new. I think I made the right decision.
Lot of work...do you think it would have been better and cheaper to start from scratch? Looks damn nice though and the purchase price is crazy good deal. Just bought 1 1/2 acres for twice that.
Yeah it got appraised for $96k so I came out winning on this one. It might have been cheaper to start from scratch, but I'm going to have the looks of an old barn with the comfort of a brand new shop. Can't beat that :neener
 
#14 ·
My opinion you kind of ruined that old barn. should have just re sheeted the roof stained the wood sides and fixed the block wall. then you could have thrown some cows in the stanchions and start making some hay to put in the mow. But this is all coming from a farmer and im just glad you didn't let it fall in
 
#15 ·
Man-O-Man! That is going to be a great shop! Can't wait to see the end!
 
#16 ·
Awesome. Sub'd for more progress!
 
#17 ·
Lot of work...do you think it would have been better and cheaper to start from scratch? Looks damn nice though and the purchase price is crazy good deal. Just bought 1 1/2 acres for twice that.
 
#19 ·
Saweet! Sub
 
#21 ·
Subd
 
#22 ·
great read and pics cant wait for final product good work
 
#23 ·
Dude, that's fricken awesome! Gonna be a kick ass shop when you get finished :thumb
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top