When an early 20th century barn was converted to a milk house for a growing dairy operation in the 1960’s, its front lost one window and gained two doorways to accommodate cattle. While functional, the modest bit of architectural style the barn had possessed was slightly eroded.
A half century later, the barn is converted to a workshop and storage. It’s time to get a bit of style back! Openings on the right-hand side of the facade were infilled with salvaged siding from another building… conveniently painted an identical shade of Barn Red! The roof was repaired where a barn door track had cut into it. Original door and window headers were of the Craftsman style; they extended past the frames by about half an inch with ends cut at a 45 degree angle. This technique was duplicated for the new window and newly cased door.
This is how the front of the barn looked in October of 2016. Sliding doors of plywood hang from a steel track. An older track, supported by a 2×8, is mounted above the doors. Its installation had rather crudely cropped into the roof.
The plywood doors are removed and the centermost doorway is given a screen door.
The original window location is found. Infill siding is removed.
A closer look… surgery will be required to reframe the wall and restore the window.
Jim reapairs the wall with recycled studs and reclaimed siding. The rough opening of the window is framed in the same manner that the surviving window was framed.
The original 4-pane window sash was found in the rafters! It gets a new casing made of weathered wood to match the texture of the other casings. Much better, but there is still that roof eave issue!
The roof eave is restored! New casings get a coat of thinned primer to match the weathered paint on the surviving casings.
Wall patched, roof repaired, window replaced, casings installed and primed. The photo below shows again what the barn looked like in October.
This is how the front of the barn looked in October of 2016. Sliding doors of plywood hang from a steel track. An older track, supported by a 2×8, is mounted above the doors. Its installation had rather crudely cropped into the roof.
Ya’ll are as good as any detective. Love this!
Thanks! It’s just as much fun (maybe more) to figure out how a building once looked (and to restore it) as it is to build something new. There will be more detective work down the road…