Our barn teardown and salvage project

In 1979-1980, we built our first horse barn out of freshly cut cypress lumber. Unfortunately, we let a know-it-all convince us that cypress logs would last as the posts for our two story barn. They didn't. So the old barn was becoming unstable and dangerous and we knew we had to tear down at least part of it.

Here is what the barn looked like before we started:



You can see how the upstairs front "porch" is sagging. What you cannot see is how rotten some of the posts are!

















Here are the sides of the barn showing the beautifully weathered cypress siding. We salvaged almost all the cypress and will sell it for the first reasonable offer.










































Here are the guys tearing down the upstairs.

















We tore down the entire loft and eight of the fourteen stalls, leaving me a six
stall barn - plenty for our remaining four hourses!














We still have some cleanup left to do, but the smaller barn should be easier to maintain. And if I need more space there is always the newer twenty stall barn down the hill.