Barn Wall Project

If you've followed this blog for the past few years, you know we take on summer projects. There have been several clean-up/fix-up projects at our barn and cabin this summer but this barn wall project required the most time and labor.

When we acquired the barn property in 2001 the stone wall at the entrance to the lower floor of the barn was in bad shape and leaning over.  This wall is over one hundred years old and as time pasted, the wall continued to slowly move more to the downhill and a gap in the wall widened. The following two photos show the wall before we started this project.



The first step in this project was to correct as much of the leaning as possible. Since the dirt behind the wall was pushing the top of the wall over, I used my backhoe to remove the dirt so the stone could be pushed back. With the dirt behind the wall removed I used a wooden block and an 8 pound hammer to pound each stone back, a fraction of an inch at a time. After a couple of weeks of hammering the two sections of the wall were reunited and upright.

To prevent the wall from pulling apart again, concrete and rebar were added on the back side of the wall.



With the old sections of the wall stabilized, new stone was added to patch/rebuild missing sections of the wall.  About 30% to 40% of the wall was replaced. The wall isn't perfectly straight/square but it does look like its been there for over a hundred year.