Designing and Building a New Barn
Once we got settled into the house, we had a multi-purpose pole barn built by an Amish family of five carpenters. It’s 40’ x 56’ and only took them about 2 weeks in August 2019 to complete. We designed with upper transom windows to take advantage of natural lighting from the outdoors. I also think they’re so pretty!
We store our tractor, pick-up truck, UTV, garden tools, animal feed, etc. in the barn. There are two workshops in there!
I also planned some space for 2-4 future horse stalls should we or future owners of the property want them. There’s also space for hay and bedding storage, as well as feed and tack rooms. Hopefully someday we will need to build some of those for a horse or two! That would be amazing! I really miss the sounds and smells of my horse barn in Maine.
A Place to Create
The barn has a workshop for Martin’s mechanic tools and a separate one for carpentry tools & woodworking projects. You may have seen these in some of our YouTube videos. He’s already built projects for our homestead, our kids and grandkids!
Barn Additions-Room to Dream
A Future Tack Room
Martin has already framed out the Tack Room in the barn that I designed. Right now we are using it to store deer corn and other animal feed until he inside of it gets finished.
We would like to finish the inside walls with white shiplap and storage cabinets. I would like a natural wood tone sliding barn door to enclose the room. I would really like black gooseneck barn lights on the wall, black hardware and a wooden or antler type of “chandelier” pendant hanging in the center.
I would like Martin to build a wooden bench to put in there in. It would be a great place to put our riding and stall cleaning boots underneath and I would hang black coat hooks and bridle hooks above it. One day I hope to have a saddle again and I would need a saddle rack to put it on! A girl needs dreams! 😉
Horse Stalls
We have designated space for up to four 12’x12’ box stalls. That’s the perfect size for an average sized horse. We would probably only build out 2 of them as horse stalls. One of the other spaces would be to store hay and pine shavings for bedding. The other space would be used for feed storage and our miscellaneous stable and homestead tools, or could also be used for goats or other farm animals in the future.
Eventually we will build the rest the way we want it, but for now it serves as a great all in one place storage building for just about everything that shouldn’t or can’t be stored in a house, with plenty of room to spare!
Upcoming Farm Animal Plans
Join me again soon to get updates on all the new farm animals coming to White Oak Farm! We are getting really excited because we’re planning to add lots more farm animals in just a few weeks! There are shelters and fences to be built and grain and hay to be bought. I have visions of cute little barns like this for our baby animals! We have lots to do around here to get prepared for their arrival.
Animal Housing and Fencing
We’ll be sharing it all with you right here and on our YouTube channel! You have to come back to SMH and White Oak Farm soon for our raising adventures!
Truly,
This is Daisy, our Sapphire Gem hen that was attacked by a hawk the day after New year’s Day. She fortunately survived but she was in shock for 2 days. It took her a month to heal up before we could introduce her back into the flock.
She has never regained her place in the pecking order she had before her injuries and some of the dominant hens unfortunately still pick on her and chase her around. The poor little girl lost some sight in her left eye and about 1/2 her body weight. She has had a rough go of it. I had to partition off a small part of the coop for her so the others could get used to her again. I included part of a roost bar in her section so she could be right up beside them on the roost.
She is very attached to me since being nursed back to health and receiving extra brushing, treats and cuddle time.
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