We have a beam!  This beam will allow us to have a open room from the kitchen to the living room.  My plan is to leave this beam exposed.  I'm going to wait until I have the walls up with shiplap to see if I like the look and if not we will wrap with wood.  It's coming together!

Dave wasted no time starting on the walls.  Kale had football camp so he helped Dave everyday during the week after camp was over.  He thought he was pretty big stuff helping out!  He is building the 10' walls for the main level and then he will build the top walls for the loft after that.  The other side of the barn will have 16' high walls.  Dave will build all of the interior walls under the loft as well so the rooms should start to take shape.

Fast forward to July and the rough in plumbing is in the floor, water line has been run and our service line to the house is almost finished.  The septic laterals are in as well.  Now it's time for the big pour.  Having a floor will be nice so Dave can get started on the building process.  We are building the exterior walls with 2x6's and then will have scissor trusses on the living side with a 3:12 interior pitch and a 6:12 roof pitch.  The garage side will just be your typical trusses. This is all the "boring" stuff, but the start of something really cool.  I even took my shoes off to walk on the new floor.  We plan to leave the concrete floor exposed on the main level. LET THE FUN BEGIN!

Foundations have begun for our barn and I couldn't be more excited to see this get under way.  Our building will have a 40' x 60' footprint and will be split down the long side for living space and garage space for our fifth wheel camper.  We are adding a loft area to the living side with a living room open to the 2nd floor.  Total living space will be approximately 2000 sf.  This will be half of the space we have in our current home.  The plan is to have all white shiplap walls with black windows.  The exterior of the barn will be white board and batten metal siding with a black metal roof.  The front porch will have wood accents with a double black window pane front door.  This is our new driveway into our property.  I didn't want a straight path to the house and we needed an area to back the camper up into the garage.  We also wanted to coordinate where the new home will be so that the driveway would lead to the garage as well....

May 5, 2019 The start of a new chapter. Set the stakes for the corners of our new building. Exciting day for us. I can’t wait to see it all come together. This will be the view from our kitchen and living room. We have a vision for where our barn will be with living quarters and have made a plan for the location of the future house too. We had someone come and bale one last time before the build begins.  We set out where the new driveway will be.  Emelia even got in on the fun and carried the tripod back.  The kids thought that was fun using the level to shoot some elevations.  Now for the contractor to come and start on the foundations and we will be set to start building "The Barn"!