Plans for a Small Barn
(Page 4 of 5)
March/April 1970
By Ed Robinson
The next step, according to the good book on carpentry we were reading, was to "lay the sills." This highly technical sounding procedure simply meant to take a piece of timber, in this case we used 4 x 4's from the old barn, and lay them lengthwise along the top of the concrete foundation. Where necessary, holes were bored in this sill to let the anchor bolts come through; the washers and nuts were not screwed on for a few more days just to be absolutely certain that the bolts had hardened into the cement. The sills were set all around the foundation except where the doors were to go.
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Next, at the four corners, 4 x 4 uprights (7 1/2 feet at front, 4 1/2 feet at back) were set in place, leveled so they would stand absolutely perpendicular by tacking a pair of braces from about half-way up each post down to the sill at either side. Then the corner posts were spiked to the sills. The 7 1/2 foot 2 x 4's were cut and nailed up. The 2 x 4 plate, the piece that goes across the top of the studs, was leveled and nailed. Next the two end rafters were notched and fitted. The end studs cut and fitted under the end rafters . . . then all the rest of the rafters were put in place, we started boarding the sides and roof.
None of this was complicated, but it did take a good deal of time because we had to figure each step out as we went along. In fact, I would like to say right here, that there is nothing complicated about building a chicken house, a barn or even the traditional country house. And now that the prefabricators are offering complete heating, plumbing, cooking, freezing and laundry facilities built in one compact unit, building your own house has become about as easy as building a log cabin.
If a person has just a little manual dexterity, say the ability to drive a car, then he will have no difficulty in doing practically all the building that has to be done on a homestead. Carpenters, masons, plumbers, electricians love to make a great mystery of things—and the building codes, the building supply people, the utilities and appliance manufactures do their best to keep the average householder from doing any building on his own. But the truth of the matter is that most of the skills of the average mechanic are pretty simple to master. Naturally, their speed and accuracy is based on years of practice. But just as anybody who can read music can play all the notes in a difficult piano piece, anybody can build a barn or a house if he'll get some good manuals on building and good plans for what he wants to build, the difference is that in the case of the amateur at the piano, the piece won't sound right played so slowly, whereas when the building is finished, no one will ever know whether it took a day or a year to build.
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