Barn Board siding? Worth the labor?

to remove and try to market?

1 barn, a grainery, and a brooder house for sure..

Thoughts.

A friend of mine seeks out barn wood all the time and this is what I understand about it..

People who are selling barn wood (siding) have ads on craigslist for a long time and it's stacked and ready to pick-up. It doesn't sell too well?

If there is an amish community they have been known to tear down and keep the wood. No idea if they pay for it though. Liability would be a main concern to have people on the property performing this work.

The hot items are the barn doors! Those will sell much easier than the siding. At least remove the doors/shutters/etc..

Go to Craigslist and enter BARN WOOD in the search, there are some pretty good ideas as well as ads....

to remove and try to market?

1 barn, a grainery, and a brooder house for sure..

Thoughts.

When I was younger and tougher, I took two barns apart for the siding. A guy starting an antique store wanted it for his interior. I fell thru the floors several times, got a couple nasty cuts, almost died from the dust and the powerwashing was pure torture. However that is the nicest store you can find. Just beautiful inside. I did get paid a lot of money to do it. I dont think I would want a regular job at it. Were I you, I would advertise before I disassembled. If you got no takers I would torch em. No way would I let someone else take it apart tho, too much liability.

If you decide NOT to remove and sell the wood, a match can take care of the issue rather quickly.

When my sister in law was cleaning up the farm, she asked for help.

Since it was a dry time of the year, we pushed over all of the buildings with a big tractor front loader.

Then, we pushed all of the scrap into a big pile in an open field.
When winter came with snow and cover on the ground, the neighborhood volunteer fire department was called out for practice, and the building was torched and put out multiple times for their practice.
At the end, everything was allowed to be burned.

Then, a big hole was dug and all remaining debris shoved into the hole and buried.

p.s.
One building is remaining - i.e. a big barn. The current owner has held out with the idea of recovering some of the wood from the barn, as is the nature of this post. However, the barn continues to decay and fall down, so I expect that it won't be long before there is nothing left that is worth salvaging. Again, I think that the current owner just thinks there is too many labor dollars involved to make the effort worth while.

REW

The doors are definitly going to be salvaged. I think were going to tear off enough for one wall in the house we're remodeling and one wainscote wall with a large sliding barn door for the backdrop to the flat screen TV.

kind of honoring the old acreage by keeping a little bit..

If it were me, I would save as much as I could! Ive seen some great mounts on old barn wood. Ive got a small stack Ive been saving for that

How old is it?? If there are any big timbers in there that are not rotted that could be where the big money is. Wiredog

How old is it?? If there are any big timbers in there that are not rotted that could be where the big money is. Wiredog

Im thinking early 1900s on the barn, late 1800s on the house.. The milking stanchions are all wood timbers. Theres 4 6X6 columns running from floor to roof of the barn that are perfect. In the grainery, theres lots of timbers..


Heres some pictures:


http://imageevent.com/okoboji_images/doerings;jsessionid=k5kyeml305.camel_s

Wow...there's several generations of stuff thrown about in there. Makes me sore just thinking about that clean up job. lol

There are some pretty cool things in there though. You might want to go through it piece by piece rather than with a big push broom, or in this case, more likely a front end loader you might find some treasure there...;)

The window frames are big items for decorators, and I saw that you had a nice pile of them...the big thing is to add a mirror behind the frame and hang it up. It's very popular right now.

Juls

I think it is, but you may want to try to find a buyer for it.

We put it on the inside of the deer camp and it looks great. Bought the whole lot for $1500 and it looks great. We also put up some steel interior siding inside and it really sets it off.

Im thinking early 1900s on the barn, late 1800s on the house..

Looks like late 1940's to 1950's on the barn. Those are tounge and groove barn boards. Newer that the older board and batten that run vertically. If people are buying barn boards they really want the board and batten. The tongue and groove will be harder to disassemble without breaking.

First thing to do is call in the guys from American Pickers. Some of those cabinets will bring good money.
http://antiquearchaeology.com/got_stuff.html

Any cream seperators on the property? Old hit and miss engines?
This one!

Wow...there's several generations of stuff thrown about in there. Makes me sore just thinking about that clean up job. lol

There are some pretty cool things in there though. You might want to go through it piece by piece rather than with a big push broom, or in this case, more likely a front end loader you might find some treasure there...;)

The window frames are big items for decorators, and I saw that you had a nice pile of them...the big thing is to add a mirror behind the frame and hang it up. It's very popular right now.

Juls


Juls,

The place has been gone thru and gone thru and yet theres still some nice pieces left. If I was retired, the amount of "projects" left here, would last me a lifetime, and make me some decent slush fund money..

I am taking a reputable antique dealer out there on Thursday to rifle thru every building and take what they deem profitable for them. They will split 60/40 with the owners getting the 60, so I think thats a pretty good deal, considering the owners just want it to be ashes..

The ice box in the basement, has always caught my eye, but until the day I took the picture of it, I was only looking at it in the dark with the screen of my phone.. as its tucked away in a room in the basement, (which is knee deep in glass bottles) Im a little more interested in it now, after seeing it under the light of a flash.. lol

I dont know what the one item is in the basement, but it looks like a milk/cream separator, but Ive never heard of one in the basement before...

I know there are still good things hiding under the "layers" of crap.. If you seen my other post about a "little piece of history" the Sevice Album came from "one layer down" on the last trip..

Everytime I turn around, something new catches my eye out there.... It wil be interesting to see what the real "pickers" will get excited about.. I put the album together, so I could send them the link, so there was no questions about what they were coming to see (alot of junk also) . They emailed me back and said nothing scared them off...

We'll see on Thursday/Friday..

I think I could clothe the cast of "That 70s Show" from this place.. hard to believe that 70s stuff is antiques now. (considering I graduated in 76) lol

You can also try posting on www.homesteadingtoday.com (http://www.homesteadingtoday.com)
Those guys are always posting about old barns and how to salvage them for maximum profit.

Just my 02


.

Vertical boards are worth many times more than horizontal ones.

My son tore down 3 old barns and has lumber stacked on his farm. Several have tried to buy some, but he won't sell. All vertical boards. Lots of good stuff.

He used a lot of it in his barn and his house.

I also used the local fire department to burn a couple of buildings for practice for a small fee. The only clinker was an old, long forgotten partial box of blasting caps. That caused a little excitement for a couple of minutes.

Just about the time I was going to start taking mine apart, a neighbor got killed taking his down.

I called the local Fire Dept, bought some beer and hot dogs, and enjoyed the heat...

I can't believe you guys are talking about torching these old barns. If you don't want to take it down yourselves there are companies that will buy your barn and take it down for you. I've paid 2 and 3 times the board foot price of new lumber for some of the antique Oak, Fir and Pine from old barns. Some of these boards plane down beautifully for tables, cabinets and flooring. You can check out Elmwood Reclaimed Timbers website located outside of Kansas City which buys and sells a lot of old barn lumber. I'm sure there are similar companies in your area. Do a little research, I'm sure it will be well worth your time.

I grew up on a farm with old barns and wanted a big barn timber for a fireplace mantel. Got one that was roughly 130 YO, handhewn on 2 sides, still original contour on the other two. My carpenters said it was the hardest piece of wood they ever handled and wound up doing their cuts with chainsaws (and dulling a few chains). It's a very nice accent to our family room today.