Cordwood Barn Building

By The Mother Earth News Staff
Updated on February 5, 2023
article image
by Adobestock/claire
Windows were framed into the cordwood with rough-cut poplar.

Post-and-beam construction combined with cordwood barn building produces a farmstead outbuilding that protects livestock in the winter and can handle many other duties.

As a part of the development of MOTHER EARTH NEWS’ Eco-Village research center, we began–in the spring of 1981–to gather a small collection of homestead animals. For the most part, the critters are either allowed to roam or are tethered (or fenced) for pasturing in whatever field has reached the appropriate stage of growth. (Our pigs, for example, have spent most of the past summer in the woods, while the sheep and our new cow have been moved around from one pasture to another.)

But when the air grows chill, animals (like people) need protection, and–even in our fairly mild North Carolina climate–a shelter is a necessity for anyone who’s keeping livestock. Fortunately for limited operations such as ours, though, a barn can do more than simply serve as an animal house. We’ve recently finishing building a barn that combines post-and-beam and cordwood construction, and think it’s a good example of do-it-all outbuilding design.

Multipurpose Facility

When we began to sketch out what use we hoped to get out of our barn, we had to face the fact that we’d likely never dedicate the entire structure to the care of one kind of livestock, nor would we be storing just one variety of feed. And true to our projections, the new barn houses critters ranging from horses to rabbits, serves as a milk-processing center, and holds hay, wheat, buckwheat, animal straw in its loft. Consequently, you should probably consider our multiple-duty floor plan as a general example of barn use. Folks who decide to employ the basic construction techniques that we’ll outline here may want to arrange their own layouts to suit their particular needs based on the ample footings we’ve included in our design.

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