Building New Coop/Barn...Phase 5 Great Barn Build, OCCUPIED! 3/6/16

[Skeeter10]

Quote:
idk if uhve amish near you butg the amish build great barns and buildings

 

[speckledhen]

idk if uhve amish near you butg the amish build great barns and buildings

Though I appreciate the suggestion, the building is ordered, deposit put down and should be delivered today, barring complications. IMO, the Amish-built buildings are not anymore special than anyone else's and to my knowledge, they don't do big metal buildings. I've seen theirs at the farm in Delano, TN close up. I think my husband and I have done comparable to better work, but we don't want a wood building to keep having to paint. We are so sick of painting-our house and all four buildings are wood. One of those will be torn down, others need some maintenance and this one will be steel, no more exterior painting!


ETA: No barn today. Truck had trouble and is a couple of jobs behind so it will be Monday morning. Sigh. BUT, my pasture lot got seeded. Bad time of year but not my fault, was pushed back and pushed back by the contractor. Probably 50% will come up, mix of winter and tall fescue. Come spring, should be a nice green meadow spot out there.

 

[MistyMountain]

Cynthia, Forgive me if you already went over this, but what are your plans for insulating? I ask because my flock is currently housed in a 6 x 10 metal shed (the type you get from Lowes) This was meant to only be temporary (pfft… temporary two years ago). New coop lacks about two solid work days, which will hopefully get done this weekend. Ahh. Finally. Anyhow, I know the metal and coating quality is nowhere near what yours will be, and it certainly lacks ventilation, but I do have rusting on the inside along the bottom where the DL touches. This is on a raised plywood floor. For the most part it is quite dry on the inside, unless it rains a lot. I flip the entire bedding floor each morning and toss out any overly wet spots, leaving that spot exposed to dry out (just like mucking a horse stall).

Just my experience. Not sure of your bedding plans, but it seems whatever moisture is needed in DL can cause rust where it touches. Just a head's up!

Excited to hear how things go today! I hope you don't have the super winds that we have up here!

 

[speckledhen]

@MistyMountain You missed my edit above, I guess. No barn today, crew had truck troubles which set them back on jobs, so ours is slated for Monday a.m.

We plan to fully insulate the walls. The roof will be built insulated with the foil sided bubble type insulation that is perfect for metal buildings so we are ahead on that. We will have 5 windows and the tops of the walls where the roof comes over and leaves small gaps will have hardware cloth and be left open for ventilation, too.

I'm not going to be thrilled with the color, but I picked super light colors that were just not white, ivory and light stone, considering summer in a metal building with chickens.The trim will be called "rustic", a barn red, which ties in with all other buildings here already. Not sure it will look all that great on a super light building but the only "burgundy" color looked to me more like eggplant so "rustic" it is.

As for "temporary", they say there's nothing so permanent as a temporary fix.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Awww, that's not good news, hurry up and wait, the motto of the construction business, I think it sounds pretty, better than mine which is tin color with rusty orange roof, and the other one is green and white, with rusty orange roof.

 

[speckledhen]

I'm so tired and my barn people are on their way. Tom has a kidney stone making him miserable and Deacon is still here, not up to putting him down in all the chaos yet. He cannot walk, won't even try, not even when on the ground and Finn runs up to me and makes him nervous.

I posted on FB, but for those of you who only see me here, Tom and I had the best time with some of our family here on the mountain yesterday. Our nephew, Steve, his awesome wife, Lisa, and four of their five kids (though, Nick and Kimmie are not really kids anymore) came for the first time since we moved up here going on 14 years ago. We had Tom's fabulous chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice, refried beans, tortilla chips with my homemade salsa and choice of two different apple cakes with caramel sauce.
We had a blast. The boys saw all the chickens and 8 yr old Logan even held the famous Miss Pocket Penny then they all had a conversation with the talkative Snow. Finn, got over his shyness and played hide & seek with all of them. He was so good, didn't bite or scratch even when they grabbed him and picked him up against his will, such a good boy. I forced them to raid my big tubs of crocheted hats and cowls and take home a few.
We watched the spectacular, glowing sunset over Watson and Piney Mtns. and I made them promise to come back when we hatch chicks in the spring. Before they left, we got them a couple jars of this year's pickles and some of the salsa from the basement. Aren't they a beautiful family? Nick, the big guy, and Logan are wearing their hats in this photo. The first time I saw Steve, on the far left, he was 2 years old in diapers, throwing a toy football. I think he knows he's my favorite nephew. Now, he's 42. Time flies!

 

[speckledhen]

Barn has started. They got here late and worked until well after dark, coming back around 7 a.m. They messed with my foundation, which we thought was level (we did use a level and string, darn it), but maybe across the center of the site, something was off kilter, not sure. We ended up with a 4" concrete block under the back corner so it does not sit on the pad like we thought it was going to, vapor barrier is not in place like we wanted. The two guys spent ages and ages with levels and string trying to get it level on the ground, side to side, front to back, etc, etc, so I suppose it's level. Now, we have to do something about the gaps under the framing that we didn't plan on having, sigh. The vapor barrier idea is shot all to heck until we get that done, but we'll get it done one way or another. Nothing ever goes the way you think it will. Looks to me like the entry door cannot be in the center of the wall because there is a framing member there, not unless they cut through it and put in a header.
Truck arrives with building on board around 3 p.m., coming directly from another job an hour away. What a long day those two guys work.

Base framing pieces placed around


And where they quit for the night...and I do mean night. They were working with headlamps and my work light and the two solar motion activated lights on the trees. Of course, I'll get better pictures tomorrow but this is the best I could do at dark-thirty.
From the deck of our house

Gable ends, all side framing members in place, guess they'll do the roof supports, etc, tomorrow, followed by the windows and doors. Hopefully, they'll finish tomorrow since Wednesday, it's going to rain. So, because the building is off the ground, unless I can do something with the foundation gaps at the back corner, water will just pour under there. My DH is fighting a kidney stone (why, oh why do things like this always happen to him when we have "stuff" going on?) so we can't do any foundation fill-in tomorrow, will have to wait until after the rain or after the kidney stone has passed.

 

[henless]

Congrats on the start of your new coop!

 

[speckledhen]

Congrats on the start of your new coop!

Thank you. I feel like I need to sleep for a week after this weekend with company and the barn build. Going to bed to read since they'll be here before sunup tomorrow.

 

[aart]

WooHoo!! Nerve racking for sure...it'll be alright.
Looking forward to watching the process from here...and not having to make the decisions.
Hang in there.