Barn update

Today I was back at my regular job after a week of vacation to build the barn. Obviously, I didn't finish the barn, but I got the "foundation" done. Amazingly, after all that measuring and double-checking, I still am a half to one inch off on the dimensions. With any luck that won't throw things off too much.

Here's a photo to show where I left off when my vacation ended yesterday:

All 18 poles are set.

After consulting with Rick (the builder of our house), we've decided we need to add more fill dirt before we gravel the floor of the barn. And, since our poles are set only on the concrete "cookie" footing and stabilized with back-filled dirt, we need to add more than the temporary bracing to keep the poles in place before that can happen. To raise and level the site a Bobcat will work inside the "barn" to compress the new dirt and its weight could easily shift the poles. To avoid shifting we will add the skirt boards, wall girts and truss carriers to make things super-stable.

Yesterday I started adding some of the skirt boards. You can see them in the photo. Since this barn is open on one side, there are only skirt boards on 3 sides. Those are all in place. I've also started adding some temporary ones to stabilize the poles on the open, south side of the barn and the poles that support the lean-to covered space that is also on the south side.

Applying the skirt boards made it possible to measure all the poles… and find out that I have a small fix to make. Because the site is still pretty sloped, the holes on the east side were too deep to leave enough pole exposed and I had to fill them a bit with gravel. Unfortunately, I realized that a little too late for one pole and it is now about 6" shorter than it needs to be. It's the only one, though, and we should be able to extend it a little given the way the truss carriers attach.

Ah, hindsight.

Still, so far, I'm feeling pretty good about this first building attempt.