Pretty exciting around here lately…  we’ve got three big projects in the works…

The first is our living room redo…  we’re finally getting to drywall the ceiling and walls and get nice new carpeting and paint and such. It’s going to be so nice!  Junior is doing all the drywall and today Julia and I went and got 16 sheets of drywall and 2 x 4s for a little fake wall and screws and such!  Such fun…  (For some reason we had to go and check out the Chinese buffet place near the Menards… just to make sure it was okay for folks to eat there and yes, we are happy to report, it’s very tolerable.)

The girls and I moved all the furniture out, and made room in the parlor for the drywall and the guys moved all of it in off the trailer.  Work begins on Friday morning!!!  Jessy is taking photos of the whole adventure…

Our second and third projects involve the space above.  Our poultry barn.

The poultry barn on the property was build in November, 1964.  It’s written in the concrete on several places.  It’s one year younger than me!  And unfortunately, it’s having a few structural issues and it’s not got a job.  All the other buildings have jobs and we have an awesome plan for this big long building.

It’s going to be our poultry breeding facility!!!  For all our French Marans and banties and a housing for young turkeys and meat chicks.  This building is huge, it’s 50 feet long by 20 feet wide.  It’s got a good solid roof and is in fairly good shape. Originally, it was designed with three big long cement benches that run the long length of the barn.  The two side wings are about 4 feet across, with a little 2 foot walkway, and then a big middle one that is about 8 feet across.  The middle shelf is stable and in good shape.  However, the two side ones are falling, and were exerting a LOT of force on the lower, outside walls of the building.  The side shelves had to go.

This is the worst corner.  It’s actually been pulled inward as the concrete shelf fell in towards the middle of the building.  We are hoping to be able to push back some of the blocks a bit and then enforce the area in some way.  It almost looks like a good push would center the blocks back up!  At least with the shelf gone, it should stop the destruction from getting worse.

When you have concrete to bust up and 40+ year old wood and junk.. who ya goin’ call???  YES!  Teenagers!   They love sledgehammers and the chance to bust stuff up!  Maggie, Jeremy and Ray got right to it!

Thankfully, it was only about 2 inches thick, but it was still tough work.  Jeremy did nearly 3/4s of it, and managed to get it bust up in two sessions.  Maggie swung the hammer for a bit as well, and has been managing the project for me! They were careful to watch for the whole shelf to fall in and the very last 10 feet or so did fall… but Jeremy was quick enough to jump clear of most of it!

We are saving everything!  The 40 year old boards underneath the concrete are in pretty good shape and I believe they are going to become a fence out in the garden area.  All the broken concrete is going to become dry stacked flower bed walls in the courtyard.  The rebar might be going to scrap because it’s pretty rough.  All the concrete blocks are going to be going to build a strawberry raised bed in the garden!  Everything possible is being reused.  And the fine cement rubble is going to be saved up for some future building projects that will be needing a little foundation base….

Breaking concrete is good for angsty teens.  They always finished with big smiles on their faces.  Jessy and I just stayed clear and took a few pictures.

We’re going to save the middle as a perfect work area for two brooder boxes, feed storage and also a little mini-greenhouse area, down by where the pony barn butts up to the poultry barn.  I don’t really want to go nuts with all the plant startings and such, but it does get very nice and cozy in there, and I think a little plasticed in area and a grow light or two will definitely get us a little start on plants from seeds! If nothing else, it will be a great place to harden off seedlings at the very least!  It’s 8 feet by 50 feet, so that’s close to 400 square feet of work and usable space just there!

I’m really surprised at how much they got done in such a short amount of time.  They busted all this concrete, managed to stack all the usable wood boards back in the corner, and lugged out 5 huge wagon loads of wall chunks of concrete AND we got 4 courses of wall done in less than 3 hours work with 5 of us working.  It’s awesome!  We’ll do some more on Friday, hopefully to get all the salvagable chunks of concrete out to the courtyard and all the walls built.  That’s our goal.  Then after that, shoveling and raking out the small chunk rubble and toting it back to our salvage pile area with the wheelbarrow.  Fun fun fun!

I just adore being able to use demo materials somewhere else on the farm for free. I so wish we had taken a picture of the walls so far, they went up so quickly.  Right now it’s 4 courses, or about 8 – 10 inches tall.  They are just to deliniate the flower beds in front of the picket fences, so I think that should be tall enough.  If we end up with more material, after we do the rest of the beds in there, then we might do one more course.  We’ll just have to wait and see how much material gets hauled out and is usable.

Everyone got a kick out of the old newspapers we found under the concrete!  Heck, only $3.20 a fifth of vodka!  BIG SAVINGS!  Maggie found a couple ornate turned bed posts or some sort of furniture leg.  She’s going to clean and paint them up as holders for her way cool signs!  There are other little treasures to be found for sure.  Cody pony was very interested in all the goings on and has visited often, poking his head in to watch what is going on.  And of course, Jack has been the on site cat supervisor for the majority of the work so far.

The goal is to have all the material removed and the walls built by Monday.  And I think we’ll do it…  the weather is supposed to be super nice for the next couple days… all the way to 60 if we’re lucky!  We’re going to definitely take advantage of this time and get as much done as we can.   Once we’re done with the demo work, then the true measuring and final plans will be worked up and we’ll start some of the build work over the next month or so.  The nice thing is that working inside the building is a great way to spend some winter time working towards some goals without totally freezing!  Everyone ditched their coats after a bit, it was warm enough, especially swinging that sledge and toting concrete!!!

More pictures as we progress!!!!

 

 

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