We Built a Grainery or is that Granary

     Last winter my cousin was cleaning up his place and decided to trade off some big timbers he had hauled in from a job he had as a laborer. These timbers had been used as forming boards around a deep concrete pour.There were 50 big old clunky 3x10s - very dirty and rough and I begrudgingly took them off his hands {$100}because if anyone could find a good use for them I could -had a root cellar in mind at the time. I bought an air compresser at a government auction and picked up several boxes of 9 inch screws (used to put log cabins together) that I found in an old van at the junkyard and bought for $10. My soon-to-be-inlaws gave me a box of old tools and there was an old impact wrench included in them. I bought the hose and connections to get the air compresser up and running and one weekend we( Heather my fiance) loaded some of the timbers up and measured them, sorted them and hauled them down into my front yard where I lined them up and screwed them together using the big screws 3-4 in each corner. This, of course, required the impact wrench cause it takes alot of pressure to turn a 9 inch screw into Oak and Maple Timbers. 

      Using this as a pattern, we started bulding 10 inch tall layers alternating the way the corners screwed together log cabin style and once we had enough to add up to 8' tall we started moving them. By setting them on other timbers streched out the back hatch of the van and through the two sliding doors to the building site. Then, by propping the floor joist section (which weighted around 500or more lbs) up on timbers sticking out of out of the back of the van and propping the rear of it on the indestructable donkey cart. Then we moved the floor joist section to its new home and placed it, leveled it on cinder blocks, and added the other layers. We did leave room for a door and window -which made the higher layers easier to lift becuse there was a ledge to rest them on between the floor and their ultimate height. They were still HEAVY. The layers got toenailed together with 20 and 30 penny nails



 I ran out of long timbers so decided to get complicated and make tapered bevels and bring the corners in consistantly to allow me to use up shorter timbers so after nearly burning out a table saw and spending hours concentrating on cutting 43.34 degree bevels and 14 degree slope I screwed that level together and only when lifting it on top of the building did I realize that i had screwed the two long sides together and the two short sides together creating a very out of square layer. But since it had been so hard to raise the 9 feet onto the roof - a passing neighbor even stopped to assist - we left it and adjusted the window hole so it came out right. That, of coarse, carried on to the next lyer of the taper so at that time being almost out of timbers and way out of square we  abandoned the tapered roof idea and a trup to 84 lumber broght me $27 in cull pressure treated lumber and some tin. This lumber became a 8x12 roof withthe belowextra long shed front on it. The extra long shed was build because it was used to prop the rest of the roof (which was built on the ground up on to lever it up onto the building.then it was cut off and the rest of the roof was added in a saltbox roof configuration.

 I am not crazy about how theroof finished up but am glad tha the building is covered and dry inside.

 And it does not leak this is a view of the window hole in a rainstorm.

 So now to cut the window hole to size.

 And put on some tarpaper to protect the timbers (and hide some flaws).

 Windows have to have trimboards to look good.

 See, I told you they look good with trimboards.

 The same cousin had a bunch of used hardwood flooring for sale so after putting down a plywood subfloor (I had to scab in nailers all around) we installeld the tongue and groove oak and poplar flooring even recycling most of the used nails. It is so pretty when swept and mopped and most importantly in a granary its rodent proof - we are also going to put it up all the walls at least as high as the window and install a threshhold under the door. I I may use a car jack or two and switch the cinder blocks out with tradiitonal staddle stones. Hardware cloth mesh is going to be across the ceiling and a shelf for storing tools in the top.

We also added tar paper over the rest of the exterior, gray on the front - neighbors may think im being snooty if I used all the same color.

Even though its a very small building, once we add sheds to the back and sides it will store tools, grain, Hay, Livestock, Poultry, and even be sanitary on the inside enough for milking goats.




UPDATE: weekend ending 9/19 added another room to back possibly hay shed.