Barn! Done!

I think some days Dan thought we’d never get to this point. But it finally did, and the barn is done!

Before I give you the tour, however, I’d like to show you a photo of the original building that stood in that spot.

You can see that the new barn pretty much fills the same footprint, with the carport slab becoming the floor for the milking and feed storage room.

Now, on to the tour. Hyperlinks will take you to other blog posts with more information. This is the milking room side.

Several of you asked me to report how the rainwater catchment tanks worked. As you can see, very well! The problem is that we’re not happy with the experimental filtering system Dan tried. It catches the debris, but the water isn’t as clear as we like. It will have to be changed but that’s a topic for another blog post. As a side note, the tanks are a favorite shady napping spot for our best rat catcher.

Moving around the corner toward the back we’re greeted by the girls.

The overhang gives them a nice loafing area. It’s also a place to feed the little girls so their mothers can eat in peace.

I slip a hog panel behind the barn doors until everyone is finished eating.

Here’s a view of the entire back of the barn.

This area is completely fenced in to make a t-shaped corral. Gates on the other end make pasture rotation easier.

Continuing around to the other side…

Inside.

The timber posts and beams were home-milled. The hay feeder is directly under a hay chute in the hay loft.

The does are fed along the milking room wall.

From the milking room…

This set-up makes it easy to bring the milking does to the stanchion for milking, and then back again.

The white cabinet in the background was originally in our kitchen before we remodeled. (If you’re interested in kitchen remodels, I have before and after shots of ours here.) I’m glad we saved the cabinet because it’s perfect for storing my goat supplies. Also for filling feeders.

To the left of the cabinet is a rack for holding the bucks’ feeding pans.

On the right is a handy shelf for supplies I want to keep at the ready.

One of my favorite features in the skylight.

This wasn’t a part of the original plan, but came about because we had purchased metal roofing panels for a new carport roof. When the carport proved to need extensive repair, we decided to use the panels for the milking room roof instead. However! The panels were 16 feet long and we needed 18 feet. We filled in the difference with translucent poly-panels.

When it’s dark out, a solar shed light works very well.

On the opposite wall is my workbench and shelves for pasture seed.

The last wall holds a flashlight by the front door, broom, whisk broom, dust pan and step ladder.

The shelves contain extra feeders and various odds and ends that don’t have a home yet. 

In the center of the room next to the milking stand is my drying rack.

I lined the shelves with layers of fiberglass window screening. Between the layers I dry chopped greens and herbs for the goats. They get a handful or so on their morning feed ration for extra vitamins and minerals.

This is stored in one of the trash cans near the cabinet with the other feeds.

And last but not least, the finishing touch, hung just yesterday.

This is definitely the biggest project we’ve ever done. A barn has been under discussion for years, and I can’t even remember how many plans we drew up and how many ideas we tossed around. I lived with a lot of make-do arrangements, and it was from those that many of the ideas came for this one. It’s a wonderful feeling to finally check this project off the to-do list.

Thank you so much for taking my tour! I hope you enjoyed it!