Barn De-Construction

The Bee McCranie Barn... It stood on the hill, about a quarter mile up the road from our driveway. It stood there for, we think, for over 100 years. Stood, past tense, because it has been disassembled.

Thanksgiving weekend, Buddy (our brother-in-law) asked Mr. Breedlove, "Whatcha got planned for the old barn?"

Mr. B: "Nothing"

Buddy: "Could I have it to tear down?"

Mr. B: "As long as you don't leave a mess. Just put all you don't want in a pile so it can be burned."

The roof was the first thing to come off, Buddy hired a few men to remove the rusting tin.

The Friday after Christmas, we took over with hammers, pry bars, crowbars and a sledge hammer. Each board was carefully removed from where it had been for over 10 decades. Each nail was pulled, some so rusty that it took extra effort to extract it from the heart pine lumber.

And what lumber...

Full dimension boards, not of the 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" lumber that calls itself a two-by-four!!!

The floors of the barn and the loft were 2" x 8" x 20'

The siding boards were 1 1/4" x 20' x various widths (some as wide as 15")

The floor joist were 2" x 10" x 20'

The beams supporting the floor joist were 6" x 10" X 20'

Six trailer loads were removed, sorted and stack at Pond. With plans to build a "cook house" at the pond, when the lot was totally clean.

The unusable, rotten and broken wood was piled in preparation for a blazing end. We started this process last Saturday afternoon. With one flick of a lighter, a bundle of old hay was thrown into a burn pit. That same fire was still smothering this morning when I started my commute to work. Sarah and her brother worked all day yesterday, tossing the odd post and board onto the bonfire.

As we loaded the last of the salvagable lumber onto my truck, I spotted a LARGE furry brown mass and a much smaller grey one.

He was still sitting beside the scrap piece of lumber when I return from town with our dinner (yummmm, PIZZA).

In an IM to me this morning, Sarah wrote:

"I am going to check on it when I get going...you may be a father when you get home"