Barn Remodel Part 1

What do you think of when you hear the word ” barn “?

Do you imagine a nice rustic red barn, animal stalls, hay bales, tack wall and all the other farmish stuff neatly organized?

Yep, so do I!

When we bought this house, our barn was nothing of the sort. In fact, when we viewed the barn during the process of purchasing this house, it was full of piled up trash! Thankfully the previous owner removed all their trash, but when we got to fully see the barn, we realized it needed some lovin!

Here was the barn when we first bought the house

After much inspection on our part, here’s what we decided the barn was in need of:

1. New plexiglass windows, as most of them were either missing or broken.
2. New siding, but new paint will do while we live here.
3. New Roof ( completely *sigh* )
4. New plywood umderneath the roof because of leaks.
5. New gutters. The current gutters were rusted through and leaking.
6. Electricity ( although I don’t think we will tackle this anytime soon )
7. Make a chicken coop, goat stall and hay storage area.
8. A good cleaning!

Let’s get started

One of the first barn remodel projects we did was build our chicken coop. Since the barn already had stalls, we decided to make things easy on ourselves and turn one stall into the chicken coop. It didn’t take much tweaking, but there were a few things we needed to do to make it ready for our chickens.

#1. We added a window. The chicken coop stall had very little natural lighting and I wanted the chickens to have some natural light. We upcycled the old window that was removed from our living room and used that. ( check that post out here ).

This window was perfect for a chicken coop and NOT a living room.

#2. The next project we needed to add was a chicken door. Think ( doggy door ).

#3. Nesting box building time! Here’s a little preview…

Chicken coop reveal will be in the final Barn Remodel post.

Next up…New Hay Storage corner.

We cleaned out the dirt, rat poop, etc. and added free plywood to the walls to create a little ” hay storage corner “.

We have enough hay stored to last us through the winter and maybe even into spring.

Inside of the barn tour will be in the final Barn Remodel post!

The dreaded project…The roof.

Putting a new roof on the barn was a long process. Removing the old roof shingles, replacing the plywood, adding all the new roofing materials…it took some dedicated time. Check out these pictures of condition of the roof!

Ripping off the old roof.

Rotting plywood…

New roof in the process!

Funny Story: So Mr. Hubs wrote the Bible scripture ( Deut. 6:4 ) and also a ” I heart Cherelle ” on the new plywood he put down on the roof. Well, a few days later I walk by the goat pen ( as in the goat pen sleeping hut area ) and notice there is writing on the walls. I ask the boys why they wrote on the FINISHED walls of the goat pen and they go, ” well Papa wrote scriptures on the barn roof plywood, so we wanted to write some scriptures on the goat pen. ” haha!

It was innocent and cute on their part, and I’d say the only time they WOULDN’T get in trouble for writing on walls!

However, the kids thoroughly enjoyed being able to get on the roof and ” help ” their Papa work.

The light at the end of the tunnel… the New roof was finally being added, yey!

All the trim was rotting away, so of course new trim needed to be added as well.

Want to see the final roof reveal? Stay tuned for the last Barn Remodel post!

Now for some fun… Painting Time!

What color do you guys think I chose to paint the barn?

I had one friend seriously try and talk me into painting the barn BLACK. That was a big NO, haha. I told him I was keeping it old school with RED! A Classic, rustic barn red!

The red I chose is called ” Deco Red ” by BEHR. It was a nicely balanced red, that’s not super orange tinted and has a nice brown-ish undertone which gives it that rustic look. For the trim we chose a plain, crisp white.

Let the painting begin!

Praise the Lord for the invention of paint sprayers. I don’t know what we would have done without a paint sprayer! This made painting the barn quick and thourough, plus we painted the barn during the summer when it was very hot, so the paint dried fairly quickly.Â