How to dismantle a barn

And there it was, gone.  It's a little sad in a way because it was so useful and was a part of the whole mish-mash of buildings we originally bought and it is the one bit of the place you could see from across the valley.  Now when we walk over there I'm not sure we'd be able to pick out our house anymore.  But, it had to go to make way for new and exciting things.  I have been working a fair bit this week, so Bob has done most of the dismantling.  He took all the tin off the walls and some of the smaller timbers out then on Wednesday, when I was off, we tackled the roof.  As predicted, it wasn't so bad once we got on with it.  We put our scaffold tower up inside as we didn't really think it was safe to go up on the roof - one of the uprights was held up only by a bit of woodworm dust and a small piece of binder twine!   Gosh it was hot work though - summer has been here this week and we certainly felt it on Wednesday.  One half of the tin had been replaced I think and that took a bit of getting off, but the other side was quite rusty and was dead easy.  We used crow bars, lump hammers and brute force.  Because the main timbers were still in place, we had to keep taking the top layer off the scaffold tower to move from one end to the other as it was about 2" too tall to get under the middle cross piece!  The chicken's 'bath' didn't really help either as one corner of the tower kept falling down the hole each time we moved it.  On Friday, my other day off we took the roof trusses off.  They were very well made with proper mortice and tenon joints, coach bolts and great big nails hammered into each joint from every angle.  So, we could undo all the bolts, just a squirt of WD40 (oh, what would we do without it!) and they undid relatively easily when you think how long it is since they were done up.  It would then have been easy to knock the joints out if it hadn't been for the pesky nails which meant that no matter which direction you hit it from a nail was stopping it from moving.  Bob cursed all this on several occasions, but did admit that it's just how he'd have built it and he'd hate to have to take apart anything he'd built for just that reason!

The only way to take the 'wall plate' timbers off was to saw through one end then wiggle them about until the nails at the other end came out.  They are quite long and heavy so my job was to hold them in place while Bob sawed and then we both did the wiggling and lowered them carefully to the ground.  Well, we were careul at the house end because it was quite close to a big window and it would be a bit of a shame to drop one through it!  Some of the others we just pushed off and let gravity rip the nails out - much easier and more fun!  Part way through this part, Laura phoned for a chat and it made me smile to see the saw stuck in place where the workman had abandoned his post until the full team was back!   Today Bob took the remaining timbers down and, once again, we have piles of stuff (good wriggly tin, rusty wriggly tin, rotten timbers, good timbers, roof trusses) everywhere to be disposed of or stored.  I think Bob may be off to the tip again tomorrow!

On Wednesday we had a really good Smallholders meeting.  We learned how to make linen from flax and we had a go ourselves and I managed to get the fibres from the stalks ready for it to be spun into linen thread and Bob and I made a piece of string out of the waste material.  It is amazing how it makes such a strong thread out of just plant stalks.  We have about three stalks of flax growing in the garden - slugs, mice or rabbits always seem to eat it - so I'm not sure we'd make much out of that!

Next week we have Sophie and Ellie, my nieces, coming to stay for a couple of days.  It's the first time they've stayed although they've been for days a few times.  They will be in a unique postion of being able to see the view from the end bedroom up to the cliffs at the back of the wood.  Once the workshop is built that view will disappear again, so not many people will see it - I hope they feel priviledged! 


Tomorrow we are getting some little friends for the chickens.  Won't they be pleased when we introduce them to the two ex-battery chickens that are going to share their housee, run food, lives!!!  I just hope they aren't quite as pathetic as Elvis was when we first got her and can hold their own while the pecking order gets sorted out.