Barns And Barn Preservation

In the vernacular vocabulary of America, the barn stands proud, a hulking icon in the agricultural landscape. Unlike a house, the barn is chaste. For this is a place for work--a space rubbed by livestock and worn by labor. The repeating patterns of the posts and beams, now considered impediments to efficient farming, mask the very intricacy that gives old barns their intrinsic character. Many of these splendid spaces now lie empty, festooned with cobwebs, awaiting collapse, but there is a growing recognition that these honestly framed buildings can lend themselves to transformation and a new purpose. In the decade-plus time since BARN: The Art of a Working Building was published, there has been a remarkable growth in the different ways that barns can be preserved and reinvigorated. There are many great barns that may not survive, and many problems with others still standing that remain with their integrity intact, but action is being taken. BARN: Preservation & Adaptation chronicles and expands upon the progress being made, emphasizing the variety of imaginative uses that can revive these beloved structures. With more than 400 exciting photographs, drawings, and plans, and a lively text by the same team of expert barn restoration practitioners who brought you BARN: The Art of a Working Building, here are accounts of barns as retreats, studios, shops, meeting places, inns, restaurants, galleries, and museums--even sheltering swimming pools--showing the conversion to domestic use, and barns as barns again. The story, rich in historical detail, covers the problems of reinterpretation and barn culture informatively and critically, yet with great optimism and enthusiasm. The true companion to its highly successful predecessor, this book will delight all those who love and want to explore these grand monuments.

A generously illustrated handbook for identifying and understanding structures that symbolize the region's unique cultural and historical landscape

A manual on renovating barns, sheds, garages, and storage buildings in order to save them from disrepair, or convert them into spaces that are once again useful to their owners, such as storage areas, studios, or home offices.

Preserving Old Barns is a wonderful resource for barn owners to assess and care for their special structures, which also celebrates the history and beauty of old barns. This well-illustrated second edition features stunning, full-color photographs from Lowell Fewster, expanded text adding over one hundred pages of new information from author John Porter, and barn preservation techniques from timber framer Arron Sturgis. It provides a practical understanding of the history, function, and preservation of old barns.

In this text, the authors take readers on a tour of American barns, with all new information and photographs. It is a complete geographic history of American barns from Colonial times to the present and examines the design styles these structures have undergone.

From the glacier-flattened northwest to the Appalachian hills and valleys to the east and south, barns dot the Ohio landscape. Built with wooden nails and mortise-and-tenon joints and assembled with beams hand-hewn from nearby trees, some of these magnificent structures have witnessed three centuries. Many display the unique carpentry of masterful barn builders, including "mystery" wooden spikes and tongue-and-groove two-inch flooring. Sadly, a number of these barns, neglected for years, risk crumbling any day. Join artist and author Robert Kroeger on a trip to each of Ohio's eighty-eight counties to view some of the state's oldest and most historic barns before they're gone.