New Year, New Barn
Well, not exactly. But the headline is catchy and when the vision comes to life, I’m imagining it’ll breathe new life into the existing barn that it’ll feel practically new.
The grand old barn is original to the homestead, circa 1870. The barn is what sold me on this property. She’s stately, time tested, built of rough hewn lumber, and she’s got stories to tell.
Put simply, our barn is iconic.
Beyond her beauty, she’s the heart of the farm — providing safe haven and shelter for the alpacas, along with storing their feed, equipment, and other farm necessities.
But she’s in needs a hip replacement, if you will.
And by hip, I mean foundation and structural repair.
Not a total surprise considering she’s 155 years old!
You might not be able to see it immediately, but if you look at the barn for any length of time like I do, you’ll notice one side is “hugging the earth” more than the other. If you’re facing it, it’s the left side (south side). For whatever reason, once upon a time in the 1980’s, it appears a previous farmer had a concrete foundation poured around the right (north) side.
Surely there was a reason only one side was done, and not it all. But at any rate, that means the wood on the south side has been rotting probably for several decades.
A remedy has been on my “big list of big important projects” since 2015 when we had new electrical service brought out to the barn.
Since then, we’ve bootstrapped, DIY’ed, patched, updated, overhauled and completely refurbished the 1901 farmhouse, plus built or repaired other critical areas of the farm.
But 2025 is the year of the barn!
Although we’re pretty confident in our abilities, this project is far beyond our skillset and the barn is genuinely historic… so we’re handing it off to skilled professionals.
I’ve personally earmarked proceeds from last year’s knitwear revenue to begin the project, and the entirety of this year’s sales will go towards funding it.
Here’s what I’m thinking for the project schedule:
January & February — Structural Engineering assessment
March & April — Engineering Repair Plan/Design and Contractor Selection
September & October — Rehab
November — Barn warming celebration
I don’t know exactly what this kind of project will cost, but I’m currently ballparking that engineering will run $10-15,000 and the physical rehab construction costs will probably be another $30,000.
I won’t really know until we get the engineers out here.
I’ve got some proceeds from 2024 saved to begin the project, and am going to use every nickel from this year to hopefully cover the rest.
In February, I’m going to run a big Dryer Ball Fundraiser.
In March, our monthly Meet & Greet events resume.
The flower bouquets of June, July and August that I’ll be growing and selling at the market will go towards construction, too.
If you want to buy a weekly bouquet delivery in Walla Walla or College Place this summer — those subscriptions are now available. CLICK HERE to get more info. Even if you’re not local and want to support — you can buy a month of flowers for me to deliver to our Veterans Home and Community Hospice.
And lastly, our knitwear sale in the fall will hopefully be timed to pay any balance on the construction costs.
In my heart of hearts, if we can pull this off, anyone local who orders knitwear can come by and see the farm to pick it up at the barn warming!
This is probably my most ambitious project of all time. I know it’ll be a lot of hard work, but luckily we’ve got a pretty good track record.
I cannot wait to get it underway and to continue to share the journey with you!
If you happen to know of a Washington state licensed construction company that specializes in historical structures, please leave a comment or reach below out at OldHomesteadAlpacas@gmail.com