This is something that we've been wanting to do for almost three years now. Life and priorities has gotten in the way, but we're finally building a barn.
For the last year I read everything I could about barns and went and forth on where the barn will be located, how big it'll be, what design it will be, and what kind of floor plan I want.
All of that is finally resolved and we have started work.
December 17th, my dirt man is out starting leveling the site:
December 21st we started putting up some of the center posts. Those are 6x6x20 posts and will form the center of the barn.
Here's a photo from last night:
As you can see, all the rest of the posts are up and it's starting to look pretty good.
Today I put all the plumbing lines and power conduit in, and my concrete crew has put all the rebar down. We're now waiting for Monday morning when we pour the concrete!
This will be a 36x36 barn in the "Monitor Barn" style. The two sides will be lower than the center area, which will contain a large open area and a second story loft running as a second floor above the center aisle.
To say I'm looking forward to milking our cow in the barn is an understatement! I'm also really looking forward to having a good loft for my square bales of hay, as well as other storage. We're also going to put a small kitchen in this barn, so I can keep milk, cream and cheese out there.
We will also keep rabbits in the barn, and pigs in the yard out the west side. The pigs will have stalls to go into to get out of the rain. We will use a stall to raise some meat chickens from time to time, too.
I'll post pics to this thread as the project continues.