Yesterday, my co-partner in crime when it comes to barn dis-mantling, Mike Cournoyer and I took a road trip up to Holdingforg, MN (near St Cloud) to look at what we thought was going to be a very unique barn filled with 100 year old White Oak infrastructure and cedar barn siding. I am usually reluctant to venture too far afield for barns as they are a lot of work, a lot of hauling, and they usually take a few days. But in this instance "Randy" was so generous with his offer of the barn AND he offered to haul all the wood from his place to mine on a flatbed truck!
Well, to keep this story short and readable...basically after a 4 hour drive from the farm to pickup Mike and drive up to look at the barn...we drove in the driveway and were immediately disappointed. It has been interesting over the years for me to realize what is useful, what is interesting, what is historic, and what I will actually use. As opposed to just an old barn.
In fact, this year marked a transition of sorts. Some of the first oak beams I hauled to the farm 8 years ago in a new-life bundle of excitement, I am now cutting up for firewood because I stored them under a tarp and they are now rotten. So what started out as a pile of historic salvaged oak timbers from my first barn...has digressed to a semi-soft pile of firewood for my woodshop. Even in its last gasp, the barn is providing value to me, although not how I had envisioned it!
Well this barn we basically decided to walk away from. Although free for the taking, this was just a recon-trip and I would have to plan on at least a 3 day weekend to come do demolition. Why would I pass this up, you ask? Well based on experience, the answer is:
1) the visable side wall boards are less than 4' and not usable for tables, my biggest item
2) all of the supposed "enormous" white oak barn beams turned out to be pine, most of
which were filled with powder post beetle holes and many beginning to soften due to rot
3) the floor boards were mostly bent and swaying from weight and water rot
So all in all, it was a generous offer; and there is a lot of "craft" wood there for someone, and I hope someone can find a use for it...but it does not quite pass muster for another trip and borrowed and cajoled labor to help me try to salvage a marginal pile of lumber.
The second stop we made, near Kimball, MN was from another call I got from a retired guy that used to salvage commercial and residential buildings for a career, and now was working at taking down a small farmstead on the edge of town in Kimball.
This turned out to be a much more worthwhile stop. Stopping and seeing a yard filled with piles of wood scattered randomly around, I began to pick through the work he was doing, and a few jewels began to emerge. A small pile of perhaps 12 boards he had covered from the rain and snow turned out to be White Oak planks from 12" to 15" wide and nealy 14 feet long. These boards were used as flooring in the second story of the farm house he said was built in the 1890's. Very hard to find old wood, and will make a few absolutely stunning tables!
In addition, there is a few piles of roofing and exterior sheeting boards that are White Pine, but some are as wide as 16" - 20"!! Very hard to find, and very useful as single planked coffee table tops, or other wide plank table tops. These boards will plane and sand beautifully, and provide a very unique look because one can simply not find lumber this wide anywhere anymore! I look forward to making a return trip and loading up on lumber that meets my needs perfectly! I'll try to get making a piece from one of these wide planks and tie it back to this story so you can see the trip was worthwhile afterall!
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