So, I have a lot of pictures on this post but they scan over about a month and a half of time.
Katie and Kelley have been searching for barn wood ever since she has been here with us. They have found some on KSL...that's where they found this first load. It was up in north Logan just in this guys back yard. It was in a big pile that we picked through and took what we wanted. They said it was from an old barn that had been torn down. It looked kind of junky on the top, but when we moved boards around, we found a big stack of real nice big boards. They were so long, Kelley had to cut some off the end to make them fit in the truck.
Kelley and KC are so strong! They were carrying two of these huge boards at a time. It was pretty hard for Katie and I to carry one together! Ha!
We drove by mum and daddy's place on the way out of town and I wish we hadn't. The yard looked terrible. It looked like he has let the lawn die and there were weeds all up the driveway and in the rock garden. I felt like crying.
This next bunch of pictures is from a barn in Lehi that Kelley found on KSL. The guy said we could come tear it down for a price. So we drove down one Sunday afternoon to look at it. Jimmy was at his sisters house so we picked him up on the way.
This barn was pretty big! They wanted us to haul everything away if we tore it down but we realized that was not going to happen. A lot of the wood was not usable and it would take us way too much time to haul it all away. We talked to him about it and he agreed to let us take it down, and take what we wanted, then just leave the rest for him to burn or whatever. (for a price) It was still a good deal though because there was tons of cool stuff on this barn. Some real cool doors and hardware and old beams.
This guy (Chet) had three cute little boys. One of them came out and showed us how to swing on his rope swing.
On the way home that day, we ran into Spiderman on the freeway. Decked out from head to toe.
This was our next trip down. We looked all around the barn, then kind of made a plan to how we would go about taking it down. We started just by removing doors and inside walls that were neat looking. Kelley and KC did a lot of sawing and Kate and I did what we could. It was kind of fun to whack stuff with a big hammer and pull things down. Then we carried the boards and loaded them in the truck. Kate found a real old bottle buried way under the dirt but when she took the lid off, it smelled so bad we didn't want to take it home.
We decided we'd give the little boy's swing a try. I had forgot how fun it is to swing!
This is what it looked like after we finished our first day of demolition.
Kelley is the king of securing the load. He makes sure it is done right. (like most everything he does.
So this was our second demolation day.
They hooked a big chair up to the side of the barn, then hooked it to the truck.
They had cut a lot of the main beams but it was still holding up real strong.
Kelley tugged on it and it moved a little, but he started spinning his wheels. So KC locked in the hubs and Kelley hit it again. This time it came over with a big crash.
I took a video of the barn coming down, but it was too long so it wouldn't work. BOOOOO! It was really cool!
Kelley and KC got on the roof and started taking the tin off. It was a big job. Kate and I went around and pried off boards and logs that we wanted. After they got the tin off, there were a lot of real nice long boards under there. They pried the nails out (the people who built this barn must have found a sale on nails... seriously used more nails than I have ever seen!) and were handing the boards down for us to take to the truck. They were really long heavy boards. KC was trying to tip one over and he gave it a big push. It did not go all the way over and headed towards Kelley. He shouted "look out" and Kelley ducked just in time to miss getting hit in the head with it. It hit him on the back really hard and made a big hematoma. I can't even think about what that would have done to him if it had hit him in the head. I'm so grateful he was protected!
We made a big pile for Chet to burn
Kelley was giving me a hard time all day because I forgot my work shoes. I really had to watch my step cause there were nails poking up out of the boards all over the place.
They kept sawing and sawing, thinking the roof would come down, but it was really sturdy and strong! They hooked the chain to it and pulled it a few more times and it finally came down. It seemed as though this old barn had a soul of it's own and even though it was very old and worn out, didn't want to give in and collapse. I imagine if walls could talk, it would have some wonderful stories to tell of the animals it sheltered, the warmth and protection it gave as new calfs were born there, and the childrens laughter that echoed as they played in the hay loft and swang on the rope swing.
By the time we finished loading everything up, we were so dirty and tired...Haaaa! we all had dirt mustachs, but Kates was the best! We will have to make one more trip...there were some great beams in the roof that were buried when it came down. We will go get those next week. Now they have some great wood to work with... I'll be posting pictures of their furniture soon!
