Does anyone have any experience with buying an old barn and restoring it on your property? I understand that there are companies that will take down an old barn, tag everything, replace what needs to be replaced, and rebuild the barn on a new property. It sounds like a nice idea. I know that for all the work of excavation, foundation, transportation, etc. it might be nice to have a completely new barn, built exactly the way you want it, but, for those of us who are suckers for old barns…
rebuilt a log cabin once, it had been built in the 1820s… from my experience unless at least four presidents slept there I would burn it down now before investing thousands of dollars
The concept was interesting to my historical side as the cabin was on our farm but… the only thing that was amazing was it had been covered with lap siding at point in time, in removing the siding one board broke… the lap siding was heart wood walnut… just beautiful
You can build a modern barn to old time plans cheaper than disassembling, moving and renovating and old structure
here is a link to just one company that builds new “old barns”, they also sell the complete barn as a kit for do-it-yourself
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It does sound very cool, but you need a vat of money to do it. I know a couple folks who disassembled but never got the barn rebuilt. Exposed wood rotted in time.
Give the companies a call, see what costs would be, just for fun. I love old barns, just not many folks taking proper care of them now. Never repairing the small stuff so it developed into major trouble. Too expensive to fix. So many locally just falling down.
I know someone who did this with a historic cantilever barn–one of the last known in rural Tennessee. It is fabulous looking beside their historic home which was also disassembled, moved and reassembled. It is not a very practical or functional barn. Aligned with it they had to build a new barn that they actually use. It was all extraordinarily expensive and time consuming.
We bought a piece of property with a 100 year old mule barn. I brought in 4 or 5 different experts to figure out the realities of restoring it. The biggest problem was there was a tremendous amount of water damage and nothing about the configuration was going to translate well for horses. Finally one old grizzled guy looked at me and said, “lady, this barn was a piece of junk the day after it was finished. You are going to have to put down a boat load of money to save it and it will never be what you want and it will still be a piece of junk.”
Instead I spent a smaller boat load and built a new, timber framed, highly functional barn. It’s a beautiful space and structure that will last a 100 years before it will be well worth someone’s time and money to restore.
I was a sucker for old barns until I got two quotes to restore a classic PA bank barn that, to my eye, was is decent shape on a property we were considering purchasing. $80-120K. Barn was pre-civil war with a stone foundation and would have been gorgeous but still a low ceiling 3 stall barn, albeit with a huge loft. We passed on the property and it’s still sitting there, roof leaking. Sad to think it’s fate but geez that is a lot of money for a 3 stall barn.
You are all smart, logical, reasonable, informed, mature people.
Darn you. 
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old structures when needing new materials nothing matches up unless you custom mill the wood yourself or have it milled to your specifications… $$$$
Before 1895, no standards existed for the grading and sizing of lumber, it wasn’t until 1969 that the U.S. Department of Commerce once and for all unified lumber sizes across the country standardizing dimensional lumber sizes
This is probably what you need to keep repeating to yourself. Old barns were built for what farmer needed THEN, usually cattle, sheep, hogs. Storage of feedstuffs, hay, often modified as their needs or livestock changed. Horses got stuck in a corner or kept out in a taller lean-to. Roofs are too low inside for many taller English type riding horses with modern height.
My Grampa’s barn was a warren of “trails” to reach the stalls unless you opened the big door and moved the tractor and big spreader each time. He had big driving ponies when I came around, so the ponies got led in and out going in the 40 inch people door, between the corner of the hog or sheep pen ((changed seasonally) and large tractor or other implements he was storing there to work on. Then in, thru the previous outside door (before he added the full length lean-to for hogs/sheep and equipment storage) to aisle behind tie stalls to stall them. Ponies were usually level headed, but there sure was no extra room going in and out. My young horse got un-silly fast to not hurt herself on stuff. She was really easy to load in trailers though! Ha ha
His barn was about the only old barn i knew of with a height to the lower level ceiling under the hay mow. He built it higher for his draft horses when he farmed with horses, they were staller daily. They were actually “farm chunks” as he put it, about 1500 pounds not usually taller than 16 hands that he kept for himself. Bought and sold bigger animals, but he thought they were a poor value because they cost more to feed. Could not stay plump or work hard on grass without lots of extra grain. Grain was for selling to get cash money. Also harder to harness with lifting heavy work harness up that high. Bad enough harnessing calm taller horses, but on untrained horses, it could be real work. He did lots of horse trading, learned not to get the bigger animals. He also felt the big size did not give that much more power for farming, just an inefficient animal with long legs. He never had trouble selling his shorter, well trained horses for good money. They did well at the County Fair pulling contests too, always won money in the top 3. Beat lots of bigger, breed horses. He was a one-man outfit, hitched the double-tree himself while they stood quiet, then asked horses to go. No jumping around, they just walked the load forward, stopped when asked to remove the double-tree and walk quietly off. Only beat by sharp-shod horses while his were barefoot. He always gloated after doing the Fair! He often sold a Pair to the competition right at the Fair, had to hitch a ride home.
I second OP spending their money on building a new barn in the old style to suit their present needs. OP will be a lot happier using it with modern changes, than “making do” with an old reconstructed, unsuitable barn.
