I decided to keep a photo journal of our barn and outbuilding restoration project at our South West Virginia Property on Tuesdays. I may not have an update EVERY Tuesday but I thought it would be fun to document the process as we go along. The outbuildings, fences, and garden area need A LOT of work. We plan to use board and batting on the outside of the barn with rough cut lumber. The shed on the back of the barn we are going to keep but remove the metal siding and replace with wood. There are places in the barn roof that need patched and it has to be painted. There are some places inside the barn that have rotted out and we will need to shore it up and make sure it is structurally sound enough to last another hundred years. Mountains of old hay and trash have to be removed. The old, commercial chicken house (probably from the 50's) has to have new windows, new guttering, has structural damage and is full of stuff that has to be removed and cleaned up as well. We will have to build adequate fencing around the chicken house so the chickens can scratch. I have always had free range birds but don't think that will be an option here as there are too many predators. The garden area hasn't been used in years but once grew enough food to supply the family as well as the community as it has been reported the woman who lived here canned and preserved food for her family as well as selling canned goods to the community. We will have to build tall fences around the garden area to keep the deer out.
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| View of the barn as we walk from the house. |
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| Side view of barn as seen coming from the pasture and "back forty". |
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Mike had already done a lot of work here
removing trash before I took the picture.
A six bay stanchion area is a dream come true for me!
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Back side of old chicken house. Has a wood burning stove and is
two stories. We will use the upstairs for our chickens
and downstairs for storage and/or dog kennel. A lot of work here
and not sure if we can save this building for long term as the
backside underground is beginning to fall in. We think we
can preserve long enough to last the rest of our lives. We are
going to try.
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Yes, this was once the garden area. It needs a lot of work and
yes, it slopes. It is mountain property and there
is very little flat land. Will be a might different for
us gardening here. The locals grow some awesome
mountain cabbage!
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