2929 East

more about his barn after the holidays.

2929 East

2929 East

2929 East

Sometimes a barn is in a place.
Sometimes a barn makes the place.

Another rare find - The Liske Barn

Our ability to find the very best barns available is only getting better.
The principal dimensions of this one are 32' x 84'
It will be offered for sale for reconstruction.

Simple elegant structure.

The internal structure is simple and very elegant.
This barn will create a beautiful home or with simple modifications on the ground floor would make an excellent horse barn.

Pine siding in perfect condition

Beautifully regular 12" pine siding boards.

Symmonds Barns.

Both the Oak Barn and the Beech Barn will be carefully dismantled and shipped to Texas.
They will be offered for sale tagged and blueprinted.
Optionally we can rebuild the barn frames on clients foundations.
The frames can be altered or added to, to suite your requirements.
WeatherBoard also offer expert custom millwork, custom stairs, furniture and design services all with the 'barn home' in mind.

Oak Frame

Total square footage is 2,760.
This barn will convert to give a residence in excess of 4200 sq. ft. allowing for open galleries etc.
Converted to a three story home it would give even more living space.

Oak frame.

The ground floor has extensive cribbing for animal stalls.
The floor in the hay mow is split level creating a central gallery in the ground floor.

Oak frame.

This frame is in superb condition throughout the barn.
Completely square and true as the day it was built, there is no rot or insect damage.

Oak Frame

Detail showing tie beam, post and wall plate.

Oak Frame.

Tie beams and posts in the hay mow.

Symmonds barns - Oak barn

The gambrel roof barn has principal dimensions of
46' x 60'
The frame is traditional post and beam construction. Mortice and tenon joinery fastened with oak pegs. The frame is entirely of rough sawn, white oak.
The average beam size is 10" x 10"

Wagons ho !

These are quite possibly the wagons used to carry the logs used to construct this building.

Beech frame

The frame is built of hand hewn beams cut from beech logs using an axe and an adze. The character reflects many man hours of hard labor. Well built and well maintained over the last 180 years, frames of this caliber are a rare find.

The barn is offered for sale, tagged and blue printed or reconstructed on clients foundations.

Dimensions approx. 40 x 60 and 40 x 48

Both barns being an ample size the older barn is the smaller of the two.

Symmonds Barns

Two Indiana barns, both with superb frames, both in excellent condition.
The barn on the left being the older of the two dates back to around 1830.
It's frame is hand hewn from beech timbers up to 15" square.
The barn on the right dates from around 1900. The frame is of rough sawn white oak.

and after all that work....

how pleasant it is

to be comfortable

in so many different ways

Systematically.........

Dismantling is a logical systematic and orderly process.
Keeping the site orderly, clean and tidy helps us to keep a safer working environment.

Blue as blue

This photo taken at dusk shows the barn with the main roof structure removed.
Next level to be removed will be the purlin posts and wall plates. This done we will begin lowering the main frames.

Barn be-gone

Ready to begin the main job of dismantling the frame. At this point the hard work is just beginning.

Skeleton barn.

With siding and roofing tin removed the skeleton frame shows it's true quality. This is a fine old barn frame full of character and warmth. 

Indiana provides perfect growing conditions for white oak and the abundant availability of this material has left us with a rich heritage of barn frames such as this.

Frame revealed

The warm color of the old oak beams is revealed by the early evening sunlight. 

The regular spacing of the bents would readily allow the barn to be 

re-formated as a 4 bent or 5 bent building. Loft space above the tie beams is begging to be converted into office or play room space. Alternatively the upper loft would create a cosy guest suite with en-suite bathroom.

Letting in the light...

The low angle of morning sunlight illuminates the warn interior oak work now the siding has been removed. 

Indiana Barn.

Located in the heart of Southern Indiana, this solid old barn is built of the very best of local materials, white oak. The traditionally constructed post and beam frame is ideal for home conversion. 

We will be dismantling this barn over the next 10 days and will be publishing a study of our work as we progress.

game room, office or gallery ?

Loft space over the tie-beams would readily convert to useful accommodation. 

1st floor bents

The bents are positioned roughly on 14' centers from gable end to gable end. The barns principal dimensions are 33' x 56' , square footage on the footprint: 1848 sq. ft. 

If preferred, the frame could possibly be re-assembled, 4 bents only to give a smaller footprint of 1386 sq. ft. 

well proportioned spaces...

The interior spaces in this barn naturally lend themselves to comfortably proportioned living spaces.

white oak... at it's best

..... acres of gorgeous Indiana, white oak.

The Tamarack Barn.......

We were instantly struck by the possibilities offered by this beautiful little barn. The beams and poles are hand hewn tamarack. The truss structure is simple and effective allowing for large interior spaces, totally uninterrupted by support posts. This little barn might easily convert into a small, two story retreat or hunting lodge.

The open structure of the post and beam elevations would readily lend itself to some floor to ceiling windows maybe opening on to a large deck and grand vistas across the Hill Country Landscape.

For more info on this project email: nick@weatherboardllc.com

Re-built with cut stone blocks in the lower elevations the Tamarack barn might build a stylish Hill Country retreat.

We will be offering this barn for sale, either as a numbered kit or re-constructed by our skilled team. The barn could be offered with an architects plan for residential conversion.

Rotten old timbers....

The structural oak work on the main barn at Orchard Barn was not built well when originally built in the 17th century. The principal rafters were too deeply cut to carry the purlins and the braces in the trusses delivered the bulk of the load into the middle of the tension member. The result was trusses that had sagged and cracked under the load of ages and, quite frankly, the roof was shagged.

Broken teeth.

Without it's roof the structure looked like broken rotten teeth sticking out of the ground.
We decided to build the new trusses on site. There was a quiet, focused concentration about the whole project as we worked on getting them ready.

That's a big crane...

Green or undried timber is heavy. A crane capable of reaching 90 ft over a long structure and lifting oak trusses is going to be a big one.
The same framers that join the structure will assemble it. They know the importance of getting it right.

Exactitude ?

All engineering processes involve working to tolerances. In timber framing the measure of what is acceptable and what is not is measured by the thickness of a cigarette paper. If you can pass a Rizla paper through a joint it's no good. How thick is a cigarette paper ?

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

With the new trusses in place the roof is more or less ready for rafters, insulation and the new slate roofing tiles.

Welsh slate and no choice.

The integrity of the structure is consolidated by the new roof. The conservation architects in the planning and zoning authority dictated the choice of roofing material. Options were Welsh Slate, Welsh Slate or Welsh Slate.

New trusses, New roof, an inside view.

The care taken in planing the timbers payed off when the barn was finished. Beautifully smooth timbers in carefully designed trusses, powerful and strong, deliberately simple, a pleasure to look at that blended into the background but withstood any amount of focussed attention.

God is in the Detail.

Features such as the mill work in a good barn conversion need to be in keeping with the scale and character of the rest of the structure. At least, we think so. If a consistent rhythm is kept, in the choice of material, in the character and style of detail and in the over-riding sense of scale and proportion, then all aspects of the design will have a unity which will give the architecture a logic, sense and purpose.

Arrow slit windows.

Our design had to preserve this pattern of arrow slit windows intact. Beautiful, slender shafts of finely filtered morning sunlight poured in through these things. The problem was our plans called for a bedroom with en-suite bathroom on the first floor in this end of the building. How to do this without building against the gable end wall? Put the bathroom in a cylinder.

Feature stairs.....

Stairs down to the lower lounge and up to the first floor bedroom were wrapped around a cylindrical structure built, free-standing in the middle of the main barn. Inside on the first floor we created a wet-room/shower bathroom with a frosted glass ceiling. Below, in the lounge the structure was cut to create a cozy semicircular alcove for housing the main fireplace.