Barn progress

Yes, it really is going to take me forever!  I do make progress and it is moving forward, it just feels like I need about 40 hours in the day and energy for 30 of them.  Life happens and other things come up so the barn cannot eat up every waking moment.  I tell myself that repeatedly.  Tomorrow I need to break out the mower and see if I can get it to work.  Which means the barn is on hold until late next week.

Morning photo.

I followed the plan.  I tore up the floor.  There were lots of nails and most of them were rusted but still sticking out of the boards.  I finally decided that I would just cut them off with a sawzall.  There was no way to pull them and there were lots of them.  The floor does look a little (lot) uneven, but I just keep telling myself that it is a barn.  It has stood for over 100 years and I am just making it stronger with these improvements.  It will be okay. 

Not a chicken predator, just one of our cats.

When Zeke and I went out this morning we had to let the chickens out of the enclosure.  My automatic chicken door is not working.  I really think it is a great conspiracy. I even broke out my electrical tools and voltmeter.  The transformer is working and there is power going past the on/off switch.  It could be the light sensor, but it is on the back of the control board.  I will have to message the maker of the wonderful auto chicken door and see if he has any ideas.  So we are back to locking the chickens up every night.  I have been putting out the trap at night just in case.  I let the cat out, a little shake and then the door is opened. 

Do you see anything wrong with this?

Just for future reference, you should start tearing the floor from the opposite side of where you are going to stack the boards.  It is not necessary to use your tightrope skills to finish the job.  Now in my defense the wind was howling and with the roof being gone on the far end it creates a wind tunnel.  The dust kept blowing in my face.  By doing it backwards it minimized the dust eating.  The boards are very heavy.  Old lumber is very very hard.  I am infinitely grateful to be using an impact driver to install the screws.  I am not sure I could have done it with a screwdriver.  As it is I broke eight bits installing screws into this old wood. 

New floor going in.

 This is tongue and groove.  I had to add an extra runner to catch the short piece on the left side.  I reused a few of the old floor boards.  I had forgotten that when installing tongue and groove, don't nail/screw down the previous row.  You will not be able to install the next row.  Two rows will always be free floating and every time you install a row you screw down the third row back.  I really feel that once I get a solid day to dedicate to the floor I can come close to finishing the whole center portion all 11feet 5 inches wide.