Restoring An Old Hen-house

[griffinkid02]

I also know a lady who does antiques/artifacts and her husband does estate/antique auctions. I'm going to consult with her when I'm done to make sure I dom't screw anything up.

 

[griffinkid02]

Actually dirt floor, river rock foundation. It's definately been maintained "a bit here and there" a couple of really old concrete blocks are replacing a few of the river rocks that rotted away. I'm going to have to add one cinder block myself where something dug under several years ago. I am intrigued that there are a couple old scool cinder blocks and a hand full of bricks, there us no evidence of any kind of morter, everything in the foundation is just "fit" together. Which is anotjer aspect I love. Yes there are some square headed nails, as well as some that are clearly homemade and a few that look worthy of vampire hunting, lol. Any of those that have to be taken out of rotten wood are being set aside to have the corrosion cleaned off and kept. Things you see in museums aplenty, but just never encounter in the mundane world. There is actually a very few dove-tail and tongue and groove joints dowel joints if you look really closely, sadly most of those were replaced long before I was working on this project. I stand by that this must have been built from local hickory wood, probably felled from the property and milled close by. Hickory is just the only wood I know that would survive this long untreated. In the souther humidity. Another thing that leqds me to believe in local, as in "they did it themselves" manufacture is that all of the lumber sizes are true, the 2x4s really ARE 2" x 4", and nowhere was a 2x4 substituted that 2x6 could be squeezed. This coop was built with what can only be deacribed as a different perspective on life than what we build with now. I just still can't figure out who lived in this are at that time frame that had a large enough family group to warrejt a coop with 14 egg boxes, lol.

Wow. Just re-read that now that I'm home. I apologize ya'll for the horrible spelling and typing mistakes. I was posting that from my phone and the keypad on it is just a bit too small for my gorilla fingers.

 

[Joe.G]

It is coming along quite nice, Hemlock and pine will also last over a hundred years which is what a lot of the barns around here are built out of and that is what I build my out building out of, My buddy has a mill up the road.

That saw was the first thing i noticed and I was amazed at how old it looks and you did confirm that.

You doing a good job and that wood does look fine there, it's a shame it was just a little to short to make it all line up on the one end, you could trim the corners out to make them all look the same.

I better your making your Grandma very happy.

 

[highpointfarm]

GO TYLER

 

[Roxannemc]

Familys were really large years ago as they needed all the help they could get on a farm in say 1900 just to get by so say 10 kids grandparents living there too as there was no social security then or until about 1920-30 .you could easily have 14 ppl in a household figure a eggs or so a person minimum that is 20 eggs or probably more a day .Also you live south? if it had a sugar cane field or cotton they may had to hire help too so more mouths to feed and breakfast were huge then so 30 Hens or more?
Square head nails and hand hewnn wood sounds older than 50,s more like 1920 or before Not suprised it to be 1900 or even before that really originally
Do you have plat of the property from thr abstract company?Mine discription tells the names and year the ppl bought it or it split from another parsel of property.Could help a little to pinpoint who owned the land and maybe a year.

 

[Joe.G]

How's it coming along?

 

[griffinkid02]

How's it coming along?

 

It's going well actually. The delay in updates is due to othere things coming up, and preventing me from dedecating an entire day at a time to the project. Work is coniueing, just in a more "hour or two at a time" pace, lol. The siding is finished an I'm in the process of changing out a couple of broken roof panels. Pics will be added when I accumulated enough accomplishments to be readily visible

 

[perchie.girl]

We wait your progress with anticipation......

deb

 

[ladyrsanti]

Yep! More photos please!

 

[griffinkid02]

And the horrific spelling and grammer mistakes in my last post are due to having posted from my phone. Sorry about that, lol.