The Barn restoration project has been a long-term effort beginning when we first started our stewardship of the property. We started with removing the accumulated "junk" and discovering many hidden "treasures. The first noticeable upgrade to the barn was the hanging of the "Barn Quilt" art project design and built by Kerri (Logsdon) St. Germain in the summer of 2019. The work was first on the lower section of the barn door but was soon "licked clean" by the cows. The following summer Kerri redid the work and the Barn Quilts now hang on the upper sections of the south facing side of the barn.
Over the years many large trees had been allowed to grow next to the barn and had begun to damage the native limestone foundation. Removing these trees without damaging the roof, siding, or foundation, became a major project. Once the trees were removed work began on repairing the foundation.
The limestone rocks used in for the foundation were quarried from the property when the barn was built in the late 1880's. The mortar used at that time was a simply mixture of limestone "dust", sand, and water. Sand was difficult to find locally so the mortar would shrink and crack, so the foundation rocks were often "dry stacked" first. Later various concert mortars were used when cracks developed. However, due to the lack of maintenance and repair over the years, when water would freeze in the cracks the rocks would shift and large gaps in the foundation occurred. During the early months of 2023 we engaged a historical masonry specialist to "re-point" the mortar and insure the long-term stability of the foundation.
While the barn was first briefly used as a dairy barn, it has primarily been a "hay barn", serving that role through the evolution of "putting up loose hay" to the square hay bale era. The interior post-and-beam construction of oak and cedar from the property now hosts a metal corrugated tin roof. The oak plank second floor has now been cleared and is being used to store locally milled lumber for future farm restoration project.