Raising the Barn Roof

July 10, 2020February 13, 2022 Monica ScottLeave a comment

The past two weeks have been physically and mentally exhausting! Although we have lots of experience remodeling and have even managed our own construction business, this is beyond any scope of experience we have ever done on our own. I am not physically strong enough to manage lumber this big. Jamey strained his back trying to manage the brunt of the load a few days ago. After a public plea for volunteers, a crew of 6 joined us on Saturday morning to set the trusses on the equipment barn. In all the excitement, I completely forgot to get a picture of the first truss being set!

The trusses made quick work of assembling the roof! I was terrified watching them place the first truss, but it went so smoothly! Just before lunch a torrential rain blew through our area. My friend Miriam and I had just gone to prepare lunch for the guys in our RV so we managed to stay dry. The guys just kept working. They were determined to get all the trusses set before they broke for lunch. Soaked to the bone and famished, they finally came to the top of the hill to have a picnic of sub sandwiches, chips and cookies.

With everyone pitching in, all the trusses were set by the end of the day! All the rain made it almost comical to try to work as we were all slipping and sliding our way around the job site trying to hand 2×4’s up to Jedediah and Zook to temporarily brace the trusses until the purlins could be added. While Fisher, Sarah, Miriam and I were not busy helping the guys, we painted all the joist hangers, hurricane ties and brackets a fashionable flat black.

I don’t remember when we stopped for dinner, but Noah cooked hot dogs on the grill for us and then we continued working until almost dark. We had to call it a day. Thankfully our volunteers came prepared to stay overnight, so we enjoyed a little time to visit too!

Sunday morning we headed back to finish the purlins. Most of our volunteers had to head home around 1pm and we had a wedding to attend that afternoon so we had a short day to finish the work on the equipment barn!

Not bad for a day and a half work! I can’t possibly express how INCREDIBLY grateful we are to Jedediah, Zook, Fisher, Sarah, Miriam, Madison and Noah for all their help! There is no way we could have done this without them! We raised the barn! YAY!

Philippians 1:3 (NIV)

I thank my God every time I remember you.
Luke 10:27 (NIV)

He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Tomorrow we will begin raising the Pavilion Barn trusses!

© Copyright 2020– or current year, Sanctuary Ridge. Unattributed use of this material is strictly prohibited. Reposting and links may be used, provided that credit is given to Sanctuary Ridge with active link and direction to this original post.

Sanctuary Ridge Adventures in Farming

Building a Barn PT 1

June 8, 2020February 13, 2022 Monica ScottLeave a comment

Madison Pushing the batter boards into place with Jamey assisting

We just finished working all weekend to prepare for the next step for our barn buildings. The first will be an open barn style pavilion and the second will be for storing our farm equipment. We decided to order trusses and they will be triple trusses to get the design look we want in an economical manner. It’s designed to look like bulky timber trusses. The plan is to paint them all Alabaster White. The metal roof is a dark gray. All the accents will be in black. Here is a little inspiration we found recently. My Pinterest board is full of inspirations for the future wedding barn. It’s important to me to have consistency in the building designs throughout the property.

Horizontally Hinged wood framed windows that can be opened for fresh air flow.

Step by step, we are getting to a point where these building are becoming a reality! With sites leveled, designs completed, and buildings laid out, we are ready to start putting in posts this coming weekend. Madison helped Jamey get the batter boards in to keep the post layouts square. It’s essential that the prep work is laid out properly.

Jamey is pretty excited about using the new auger to drill holes for the barn poles. Here’s a video of his first attempt at using the new auger.

Trying the new auger attachment!

Hopefully I will get some video and pictures of the work we are planning for this weekend. I’m excited to see this finished!

© Copyright 2020– or current year, Sanctuary Ridge. Unattributed use of this material is strictly prohibited. Reposting and links may be used, provided that credit is given to Sanctuary Ridge with active link and direction to this original post.

Sanctuary Ridge Adventures in Farming

Bulldozers and Lasers

May 22, 2020February 16, 2022 Monica ScottLeave a comment

With no buildings to store our farm equipment, it’s time to start some construction!

Jamey and I have spent hours planning, staking, measuring, and finally decided on a solid plan for our first farm barns. One will be an equipment barn, one will be an outdoor pavilion and the final barn site is for a proposed wedding venue. The build sites all need to be leveled in preparation for the buildings. Since we have to rent the bulldozer, we wanted to get as much preparation completed as we could. Our retired construction company “Legacy Construction, LLC” gave us the experience we need to plan and manage the build. Although we always decided the best location for our home construction by measuring and laying out the site based on the legal setbacks, we never did the site leveling or foundation preparation ourselves.

Jamey making sure the “drop” in the septic is correct

Jamey’s expertise in these things always amazes me! On our mission trip to Belize last May, we needed someone to install a septic system. No one with the expertise needed was able to go. So Jamey asked questions, read about it, watched videos, and studied how to install a septic system. In addition to planning the work for the mission team members and creating material lists, he spent the majority of the trip in the grueling heat/sun installing the needed septic system. When we returned in November, he installed the second system for the Mission House at Dream Central Belize. Sometimes you don’t have to be an expert, you just need to be willing to be used by God and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done!

Once again, Jamey has studied to prepare for something new: building site prep via bulldozer.

Even with all the planning, we ended up changing some of our plans. After the first day of working with the Dozer, the machine developed a massive hydraulic leak. The rental company had to come get it to do the repair and bring it back to us almost two weeks later. During those two weeks, we re-evaluated our plans for some “RV sites”. A new plan was developed to allow us to make the RV sites multipurpose. We will be able to use those for parking or outdoor seating. We also redesigned the RV “carport” to a pavilion that will have the same heavy timber design as the wedding venue. It too will serve multiple purposes. We are excited to see these designs come to life now!

The Laser Transit

Jamey became a pro on the dozer and I learned to run the transit!