Someone to take down an old barn - General Discussion Forum - General Discussion Forum

I heard a story awhile back that a guy driving throught Iowa owned an upscale furrier business in a city on the west coast. The story goes he was eigther remodeling or building a new display area to show his high priced furs that he had forsale. He seen this old barn and stopped and asked the owners what they were going to do with it and he bought the barn, at the time in the late 70’s for $5,000. He sent a crew back too Iowa and they dismanteled it and took it back to California and the whole store was lined with these barn boards.

While rabbit hunting in southern Iowa I asked permission to hunt this draw. While talking to the owner he asked if I wanted to tear down an old barn just down the road. I walked down and took a look at what was inside. Alot of old farm antiques were there and all this old barns support timbers were hand axed, and you could see almost every ax mark the whole length of these beams and supports, out of native lumber and hand drilled and pegged with oak dowels. There was about 500 bales of straw in the loft that had to be removed along with the whole barn, hay trolly that ran the whole length of the barn, a 4 horse work team harness hanging on the wall, old corn grinders an all, this whole barn was right out of the 1800’s. I didn’t have the ways or means to removed the old barn so I had too pass it up.

Now a days with the internet, if you advertised there selling the old timbers and barn boards you probably do very well doing it yourself. Or talk to a couple guys to do it for part of the profit, thats the way Id go. Down here people are building new homes around these old timbers and things they find from past years.

Got a story for ya,,,My moms friend hired me to remodel a house that she got through her uncles will when he passed away. I went and looked at the house and in the kitchen was an old wood fired cook stove. Let me tell you, this wood cook stove was a work of art and finely detailed flowers of diffrent colors. It was 8′ long, had two wood burners on the bottom, one on the bottom right and one on the left. It had 8 lids for taking off with a handle where you could also put in wood. It had two baking and warming ovens on the top portion of the stove all with thermostates. The front panles that opened to put wood into and to bake bread in were a work of art with turquoise, red and blues of diffrent shades in enameling befor it was fired to get these colors. All the spring handles with shiny chrome, I mean this old wood cookstove was a total work of art. She wanted me to dimantle it and told me I could have it for free if I got it out of there. Well she was my mothers friend and I couldn’t do that to her knowing it was worth something. I told her to advertise it in the local newspaper and sell it. I told her anone buying it would take it apart to take it with them. In the 70’s she sold it for $500 that I told her to advertise it for. She sold it to some people from the Des Moines area for that sum and they were going to put it in thier new home they were building. She probably could have gotten $3 or $4 thousand but I didn’t know at that time what it was worth. Now a days with the internet I’m sure this old stove would have been bid out of site on the internet. I searched the internet to see whats forsale on cook stoves and theres nothing even vaugely close to this old stove. So be careful because you may have something that alot of people are willing to pay a nice sum for. Example; some of the old boards that they nailed the cedar shingles too on the roof were rough sawn walnut, now those old walnut boards are 100 to 150 years old, that wood is very valueable, try to find 100 year old walnut boards, you can’t.